QUALIFYING: Stanek in supreme form to take pole ahead of Crawford at Yas Marina

Roman Stanek put in a superb performance to take a second Aramco Pole Position Award of the season, beating DAMS Lucas Oil’s Jak Crawford and Invicta Racing teammate Leonardo Fornaroli at Yas Marina.

Stanek’s 1:36.836 was good enough to give him pole ahead of Crawford by just 0.087s, with Fornaroli in third, setting Invicta up for a strong weekend with the Teams’ Title on the line.

Sebastián Montoya set the early pace with a 1:37.972 for PREMA Racing, but Crawford picked up from where he left off in Free Practice to go quickest by 0.339s.

Last year’s Feature Race winner Joshua Duerksen was also showing strong form, as he went to within 0.091s of Crawford’s leading time.

On the second push lap, Montoya went quickest again, this time on a 1:37.604, but just before that Duerksen beat him to P1 thanks to a 1:37.464.

After the first set of laps, the Paraguayan driver was on provisional pole by 0.135s, with Fornaroli in second, and Montoya in third.

Heading on to the final laps, Oliver Goethe then went fastest on a 1:37.086, with Dino Beganovic matching the MP Motorsport driver’s time.

They were both quickly beaten by Montoya, and then Crawford, only for Goethe to lose his time for exceeding track limits, dropping him to P16.

Then came Stanek across the line, the Invicta driver completing a 1:36.836 go to the top of the timesheets. Crawford then went up to second, 0.087s off the top time, with Beganovic in third.

There were several drivers improving as the chequered flag was waved, Fornaroli went up to third, leaving Stanek untouched at the top to take his second pole position of the season.

Beganovic went to fourth ahead of Montoya, while Goethe recovered from his time getting deleted, went up to sixth late on, with Victor Martins in seventh.

Duerksen wound up in eighth, ahead of the Campos Racing pairing of Nikola Tsolov and Arvid Lindblad – the teammates set to start on the reverse grid front row for the Sprint Race.

That Sprint Race is set to get underway at 16:15 local time on Saturday afternoon, with the drivers looking to end the 2025 campaign on a strong note.