Round 14 Post Feature Race Press Conference

FIA Formula 2: Hello and welcome to Abu Dhabi where it’s time for the post-Feature Race press conference with our top three finishers. In third place, we have Gabriele Minì from PREMA Racing, in second is Roman Stanek from Invicta Racing and taking the win is Joshua Duerksen for AIX Racing. Joshua, congratulations, you said it yesterday that you won here from eighth on the grid in the Feature Race, and maybe you could do that again and you've gone and done it.

Joshua Duerksen: Yeah, thank you very much. I knew we had a strong car here and I was super motivated to get the win today because it's my last race with AIX Racing, so I wanted to give them the best to them so thank you with a race win. I was just super motivated, and we were quite confident that we could do a good race because we showed it also last year. Everything just went really well and I'm really happy to finish this chapter with them like this.

FIA Formula 2: Some of those Safety Cars obviously helped against the drivers on the alternate strategy, but you still had to work hard for this win. Just how good did the car feel out there?

Duerksen: Yeah, it was the car was really good. For sure it was a bit tricky having a car in another strategy in front of me. I had to overtake them on track, and I lost a bit of time there because of course their getting slower as they have more tyre than me and more laps with those tyres. So I had to push quite hard because I knew that Dino was also overtaking the guys, so I needed to make sure that I was always one step in front, which didn't make it easy for the tyre management, to be honest, but luckily it paid off and the car just felt really good.

FIA Formula 2: Well, it's a win to wrap up the season as well here at the finale in Abu Dhabi. Just how do you reflect on 2025? Duerksen: It has been a season with a lot of up and downs, I must say, we started really well. It's really a fun fact. I started the season winning and I finished the season winning. That's really cool. But we had many up and downs, especially mid-season, many race weekends where we did not score any points, I think this is what hurt us the most. But I'm just really happy that we could finish the season like this. I think I've done now six podiums in the last eight races or something like that. So, we came in with a really good streak, and the car was just feeling always better and I think, maybe a bit too late, but I think we slowly started to find the sweet spot of the car and just a really nice way to finish the season. For sure I'm not really happy 100% because I was expecting to be a lot higher in the Championship standings. But yeah, it's part of the racing, the tough moments, at least I maximised the learning and I hope I can be much better next year.

FIA Formula 2: You got into the top ten in the Championship with that win. So well done for that. Congratulations on the win today. Roman, second place for you today and it all seemed to hinge around the pit stops today would you say?

Roman Stanek: Yeah, for sure. The pit stops and the out lap wasn't great. I think that's where we lost a lot of time, and then it was very difficult to overtake, to get in front of the guys who were on a different strategy, so that compromised my tyre management a bit. Therefore, I couldn't, let's say, be faster.

FIA Formula 2: You came under real pressure in the closing stages to Gabriele, but you also had Dino’s penalty ahead of you to think about. How tough was it to not lose too much time defending and make sure you stayed within those five seconds? Stanek: Yeah, it was quite difficult, especially the last three, four laps where, thanks to the drivers I had to overtake, I compromised a bit of my tyres. So I didn't have the best tyres, and I was sliding quite a lot. So, yeah, Gabriele was putting a lot of pressure on me, but at the same time, I needed to stay within a second of Dino. And the end I managed well and I'm happy.

FIA Formula 2: I know you would have loved the win today, but one thing you have helped secured is the Teams’ title for Invicta. Just how proud of you to have been part of that success? Stanek: Yeah, it's been an amazing year with these guys. We have had and still have a very strong connection. The relationship is amazing with my engineer Colin and all my mechanics and everyone in them. So, I would just like to say huge thanks to them, and to the team owner for giving me the opportunity to drive for them this year.

FIA formula 2: Well, well done today and on the season as well. Gabriele congratulations a third podium of the season and from 13th of the grid, how happy are you with that?

Gabriele Minì: Yeah, it was a very good one. To be honest I didn’t not expect to be here today. But yeah, it was just an amazing first lap. I gained seven positions, I was already up to P6 after the first lap. And then it was just all about taking care of the tyres, good overtakes and managing until the end. It was very close same for Roman and even closer for me, with a penalty of Dino. I was trying to, in a way, to be fully confident in attacking him, but in the end, I was never close enough. So I just tried to not attack him too much, not lose too much time, and it paid off.

FIA Formula 2: I was going to ask about those closing stages. Just how tricky is it to find that balance? Because I guess if you had overtaken Roman but lost too much time, it actually wouldn't have gained you a position.

Minì: Well, yeah, that's the thing. In the end, I know that if I would have overtaken Roman, I would have had much more pace because with the dirty air, especially in the last sector, I was compromised quite a lot. In the end, what I did is just, whenever there were people in front, I just stayed out of the DRS, just stayed distant and saved the tyres there to then push at the end. So it was just a fine line, and we needed to find a good compromise

FIA Formula 2: It was nicely done now. I know it's probably not been quite the season you were hoping for at the start of it, but how do you look back on 2025? Minì: Well, yeah, of course, it's not been what we wanted or what we expected, especially after such a strong first part. After Australia, we had been very quick in all testing, very quick on the first race weekend, both the quali and being on pole. In the first race, getting a lot of places. So, we were expecting to stay there, but in the end, it didn't happen. We just had many up and downs, every time we could fight for some points, something was happening. So, either a breakdown or a slow stop, which made us lose a lot of points. Ultimately, in the end, what we missed was always that step from FP to Quali, because even this weekend, we were fastest almost every lap in FP, in the end we finished P2. Then from the first lap of Quali we were missing quite a lot and for the second set it was even more. So that's what we've been missing really to fight for the front. We know we never had the weekends where everything is perfect, but for sure to win a Championship, you need the bad weekends to still be in the points, which is what we have been missing.

FIA Formula 2: Well done on the podium to day, congratulations, thanks all.