FIGHTING FINISH TO FIRST FIA FORMULA 2 SEASON FOR JOHN BENNETT

Rising British motorsport star John Bennett put in a fighting display in the 2025 FIA Formula 2 Championship season finale at Abu Dhabi this past weekend (06/07 December) to cap off his maiden campaign in the Formula 1 support series.

The Salisbury-based young charger brought down the curtain on his first full season in the incredibly competitive single-seater championship with the Van Amersfoort Racing squad in Abu Dhabi. He was looking to add more points to his tally in an educational maiden campaign at the top level, having scored a best result of ninth place earlier in the summer.

Bennett, who is backed by partners Pangea Insurance, StreetSharp Ltd, Lonetree Limited and Lewco Holdings Limited, remained in the middle east for the season finale, travelling across from Qatar for two final races held around the beautiful Yas Marina circuit which he competed at 12 months ago.

As had been the case in much of the second half of the season, the gaps between competitors continued to shrink, as Bennett showed consistent improvements to close in towards the business end of the field. After a solid showing in free practice, Bennett took what he had learned on Friday morning into the afternoon's key qualifying session. Battling against the clock, the former GB3 vice-champion pushed hard to put himself best of the VAR team's two cars in 15th position, only a few tenths of a second from earning a sprint race pole position.

The race in question was first on the agenda when the weekend came around, and a rapid start from Bennett sent the #24 car surging around the outside of no fewer than four key rivals before settling into an improved 13th position in the early shuffle. Unfortunately, the Brit could not make use of this progress for much longer after a mechanical failure left him stricken by the side of the track on lap seven, undoing all his efforts and instead recording an unlucky DNF.

Another chance to put it right came on Sunday morning in front of an expectant Formula 1 crowd, anticipating its own season finale outcome. Bennett started once more from 15th for the longer 33-lap contest, and immediately went on the offensive as he looked to utilise the circuit's long straights and heavy braking areas to find a way of pushing forward through the pack.

He did indeed repeat his electric getaway by climbing up towards the fringes of the top 10 around the outside heading through the opening turns, and expertly avoided a multi-car incident at the back chicane to move up to as high as 11th position when the safety car emerged to clear up the debris.

A feisty restart put Bennett into a three-wide situation alongside both Kush Maini and Ritoma Miyata, the latter squeezing Bennett out who settled into 13th with mandatory stops looming for the medium tyre-shod VAR man. That was still playing into his hands with a faster tyre to go on the car later on, but he was dealt a blow completely out of his control when a second safety car emerged and put him and several rivals out of sequence to those who had already made their stops.

He battled those on fresher rubber as hard as he could from that point before making his stop on lap 29 of the race, emerging down in a very much unrepresentative 16th position which would be where he took the chequered flag to round out the year.

John Bennett: "It's been a good learning year for us, that's for sure. We've come away from our first season certainly with a lot of positives, and scored points too which nobody can take away from us after making a big jump from GB3 into the second tier.

"It was an educational journey for us all too. We have learned a lot about the cars, the circuits and you can see just how close it has been across the season - particularly in qualifying. We can look back at rounds like Monaco, Spa and Monza as highlights, racing at some amazing tracks, but also there's lots to take on board for the future.

"We were unlucky this weekend after showing decent pace in quali and making two good starts. Unfortunately, the failure in race one and then the double safety car were completely out of our hands and that cost us the chance for top 10 results, and maybe points in the finale.

"I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everybody for their support throughout this season. My family, my sponsors and all the team at Van Amersfoort Racing for their help. We could not have done it without them, and we'll look forward to what comes in 2026."

Images from James Gasperotti.