We have passed the halfway point of the 2025 Formula 2 season, with a break between the British and Belgian Grands Prix – a good time to catch up with Richard Verschoor to discuss his progress in the FIA F2 Championship. The MP Motorsport driver took a comfortable lead in the standings at the Red Bull Ring and despite a less successful weekend at Silverstone remains firmly at the top. How did the Dutchman get there, how has he worked with the team, and what are his thoughts on the second half of the season?
Verschoor entered the 2025 season with a clear plan: this would be his final year in Formula 2, and the goal was to win the title. Having bagged two feature-race victories at Jeddah and the Red Bull Ring, as well as claiming a sprint-race victory at Barcelona and netting a large chunk of additional points, the MP Motorsport driver now sits on 122 points, six points ahead of his closest rival, Jak Crawford, 14 points ahead of Irish rookie surprise Alex Dunne, and 18 points above reigning Formula 3 champion Leonardo Fornaroli.
While it seems fair to say that everything is going according to plan, Verschoor remains wary and offers a few caveats. “We are in a good position, no doubt,” he begins. “But the level in Formula 2 is so high, this year as well. If we want to maintain our position at the top, we have to keep pushing hard and improve. You saw how I lost a lot of points at Silverstone. That shows that you immediately struggle if things don’t go quite the way you want. So yes, things are going well, but they need to be better. In a race like the one at Silverstone, I’m simply happy to have scored some points.”
You could easily turn that around, since Verschoor himself suggested at the start of the season that you win a Formula 2 championship by also performing on your lesser weekends. Silverstone was certainly one of those weekends, and yet he finished in the points twice. Are those weekends the reason that he is leading the championship? “Yes, I think so. We could easily have scored no points at Silverstone. At the start of Sunday’s race, I thought that would be the end of it – and yet I still scored six points. It’s not much, but it’s better than zero! If I had scored no points at all, I would not be in the lead right now. All these tiny margins count towards the end, so we have to hold on to being able to make these differences. But of course, I’d rather win!”
On the back of a good weekend, Verschoor would often say that the team had given him a great car. What does he consider to be the best team performance so far? “Jeddah was definitely our best race this year. I drove incredibly well, the team’s pit stop was excellent — everything went exactly the way we wanted. And that was from P9, with no luck with the strategy or help from the safety car — just pure pace. That was a truly great race. But Austria was nice too, of course...”
Apart from his victories, were there any races in which he remained somewhat under the radar but felt that he drove just as well? “I think we were steady in all our races, we didn’t really have a bad race. That has been our strong point, and we have to maintain that. We were always fast during the races, except at Silverstone in the rain, so that’s something we can take into the second half of the season.”
Examining this year’s results, as well as those from 2024, it seems that with this new F2 car, there are teams and drivers who consistently perform well in qualifying yet rarely are able to push on Sunday. And then there are teams that show attacking form in the races, especially the feature race, but risk missing out on the top 10 in qualifying. Where does MP sit between these two extremes? “I believe we are strong everywhere. This season, I’ve often felt that I’ve had a good car under me, and I’m very happy about that. That's why we’ve been able to do so well.”
However, when pressed into making a choice, Verschoor believes that both he and MP are slightly stronger in the race than in qualifying. “The race is my strong point, and it suits MP’s car well. If we can take another step forward, it will be in qualifying, both for myself and the team. It’s definitely on the cards – in Austria and at Silverstone, we had a strong start to the weekend but failed to finish it off in qualifying. The most important thing, though, is that we perform consistently and don’t have any peaks and troughs.”
Verschoor believes that the differences in team performance between qualifying and the races cannot be attributed to the mandatory use of two tyre compounds. “It’s not about the tyres, it’s more about the car’s performance itself. In my opinion, it’s down to the team and the philosophy they have chosen for the car’s set-up. One team places an emphasis on mechanical grip, the other on wings. As a driver, you then try to make the best of that. Also, some basic settings work better on one circuit than on others.”
That raises the question of which changes Verschoor and his engineer are able to make to produce a car that is faster during qualifying or the race. “That’s actually a good point – some people believe that all F2 cars are the same because the chassis and engines are the same,” is Verschoor’s immediate response. “But looking at the car itself, there is so much you can change – the wings, the antiroll bars, the differential, the suspension geometry, to name the most important ones. Compare it to a construction kit – it’s the engineers’ job is to put all of that together and fine-tune it as well as they can. Once you have the basics right, you can start fiddling with the balance – you might add a little front wing or adjust the antiroll bars a bit. As a driver, those are tools I mainly work with to make the car just that tiny bit quicker.”
Verschoor is now the most experienced driver in the F2 field. Has his experience worked to his advantage in any situations this season? “Jeddah was certainly interesting because I started the race with a completely different balance to what we had expected. I tried to adjust that with all the tools at my disposal, right down to my driving style. In the end, we had a very strong pace. In fact, the longer the race went on, the more the car improved. My experience certainly helped there, especially with tyre management. That’s usually the area where I can make the most difference. So yes, experience does often work to my advantage, but it can sometimes be the opposite when I encounter unexpected things because they turn out to be completely different from my previous years’ experience. I always try to deal with those issues as best I can.”
Can Verschoor explain how a driver can maintain that tyre performance without falling off the proverbial cliff? “It’s track-dependent. You may need to deal with graining on one track, but on another you won’t have that issue. Instead, you have to pay attention to your tyre temperatures. Overheating is often the challenge that you have to experiment with, as on one track you can go much faster without overheating your tyres than on another. If you have a good feel for that on each circuit, it hands you a huge advantage.”
Jak Crawford, Alex Dunne, Leo Fornaroli and Luke Browning are now hot on Verschoor’s heels in the championship standings. Did he anticipate those drivers to be his closest rivals? Or would he have predicted Martins and Minì, for example? “'It’s always a bit of a guess beforehand, but ultimately, I see many drivers on the grid as my potential rivals. We are only halfway into the season. Don’t forget – all the points scored so far can now be taken by completely someone else! We are the ones on top now, but I believe you can never rule anyone out in Formula 2. Everyone is competing against me, and I treat every qualifying session as a competition against everyone else.”
“That's why I take it race by race, working with the team to maximise every one of them. Crawford also has experience in F2. Martins is my age, so a mature guy with lots of experience. And following Bahrain, I knew I also had to take Dunne’s challenge into account, as I could see that he was in control and could maximise when the car was performing well. He has already demonstrated that on several occasions this season, including that Friday practice session in Formula 1. So there are plenty of other drivers who are happy to try and overtake me!”
