Jak Crawford takes F2 Saudi pole with "greatest lap ever"
American Jak Crawford took his first pole in two years to begin his 2025 tilt at the FIA Formula 2 championship.
JEDDAH–American Jak Crawford took pole for round three of the 2025 FIA Formula 2 championship in Saudia Arabia with the self-described "greatest lap ever."
The DAMS Lucas Oil driver took his first pole since his debut F2 season in 2023 and after a difficult start to this year, failing to finish in the one race in Australia and 12th and 16th in the Bahrain sprint and feature races respectively.
Crawford will start on pole for the Saudi feature ahead of Victor Martins and Leonardo Fornaroli after the trio finished within a tenth of a second of each other.
Martins set the early pace in free practice and was the first driver to set a representative lap in the qualifying session, before Gabriele Minì and then Luke Browning jumped to the top of the time sheets.
After a brief red flag when VAR driver John Bennett hit the wall and spun out, it was the final set of timed laps that proved all-important, with front-runners Leonardo Fornaroli and then Victor Martins taking the top spot.
It was Crawford who set his final lap in the dying seconds of qualifying who could not be beaten, claiming pole with a time of 1:43.579 around the fast Jeddah Corniche circuit, an important result given the difficulty in overtaking at the track.
"I think that is the greatest lap I've ever done in my life!" exclaimed the American over the radio to his team.
"We were very strong in practice, one of the strongest, but the first run was so bad in qualifying, I was seven tenths off the pace," said Crawford after the session
"Then we had the red flag on my first push, and I said, "it's not going to be our day, but I'm going to do my best and try and come home with a top ten,""
"But then it all came together... I couldn't believe the time I saw when I crossed the line. It all came together perfectly in the end."
Crawford attributed his pace to setup changes made under the red flag, coyly refusing to admit what they were in case it gave his competitors any advantage.
Martins and Fornaroli completed the top three, with Luke Browning, Arvid Lindblad, Alex Dunne, Pepe Martí, Gabriele Minì, Richard Verschoor, and Roman Stanek completing the top 10 in what Martins and Fornaroli last week agreed is one of the tightest fields in F2 history.
Stanek will take reverse-grid pole position for the sprint race, although the Czech driver is under investigation for potentially impeding other cars during qualifying
The FIA Formula 2 sprint race is underway at 1.15am AEST on Sunday, before the feature race at 11.25pm.
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