WHAT WE LEARNED: All the key takeaways from Round 6 in Barcelona

3 June 2025

Eight winners in 11 races so far in 2025 and the Championship fight is taking shape nicely going into the summer rounds.

With Arvid Lindblad and Campos Racing taking top honours this weekend, and several other contenders experiencing a variety of ups and downs in Barcelona, we take a look at the biggest talking points following the final leg of the triple-header.

FIVE-WAY FIGHT AT THE TOP

It has been an intriguing season so far at the top of the Drivers’ Championship. For the fifth-consecutive Round, we have left with the lead having changed hands, as Rodin Motorsport’s Alexander Dunne takes to the top spot once again after a stellar recovery from three grid penalties.

Richard Verschoor and Arvid Lindblad added their names to the repeat winners of 2025 list, victorious in the Sprint and Feature Races respectively, while Jak Crawford and Luke Browning left Barcelona level on points in fourth and fifth places.

The top five in the title race are separated by 14 points going into Round 7, and each have displayed moments of brilliance already at this point in the campaign.

Had Leonardo Fornaroli not been down in P20, that could have been even closer and kept six drivers within touching distance going into Spielberg.

Including the Italian, four of the top six have led the Standings at some point this year, and there’s no question that we are set to experience more twists and turns along the way.

The 2025 title fight is shaping up to be one of the most intriguing and closely-fought battles in recent memory, with every driver making a strong case so far this season.

KING OF CONSISTENCY

With Fornaroli’s aforementioned P20 in the Barcelona Feature Race, Lindblad is now the only driver who has finished inside the top 10 at every race so far this season.

The Red Bull Junior Team driver’s only non-scoring result of the year came right at the very start, as he finished P10 in the Melbourne Sprint Race.

Since then, the Briton has placed no lower than eighth, and has six top five results in the following 10 races, two of those victories including the most recent Feature Race.

Lindblad narrowly missed out on the accolade of youngest pole sitter in Formula 2 history, with Théo Pourchaire retaining that record by three weeks over the Campos driver.

The fashion in which Lindblad won the Spanish Feature event however is a big message to his rivals, comfortably converting pole position and he is arguably in the best form of the top contenders.

Perhaps only Crawford could boast that he is in better form currently, with the American driver the highest points-scorer from Jeddah onwards, taking 73 points to next-best Lindblad’s 71.

STRATEGY MASTER

Once again it was Verschoor who was able to capitalise on a strategy call that defined a Formula 2 race. The Dutch driver has made a habit this season of making the most of any opportunity afforded to him to fight back for a strong finish.

Most notably, his Jeddah Feature Race win came utilising the alternative strategy to great effect, beating Crawford to the line for his first win of the season.

Then there was Imola a weekend in which he battled illness and after a disappointing Qualifying session left him down the order, got back into the points with a Safety Car.

The Barcelona Sprint was a great demonstration of his and MP’s ability to adapt on the fly and their understanding of one another. They executed a great call to pit for fresh tyres late on and capitalise on the opportunity afforded to them by the late-race Safety Car deployment.

Then the latest episode on Sunday in Barcelona was another battle versus Crawford, but this time Verschoor was the one on the defence. The Dutch driver measured out the performance of the Hard compound tyres to keep the American driver at bay for his second podium of the weekend.

Back up to second in the Drivers’ Championship and three points adrift of leader Dunne, Verschoor has bounced back from two tough rounds in the final leg of the triple-header.