JOHN BENNETT CLOSE TO BRILLIANT POINTS FINISH ON MAGICAL MONACO DEBUT

John Bennett went from the back of the field to one place short of an almost magical top-10 finish on his maiden visit to the streets of Monaco in the fifth round of the 2025 FIA Formula 2 Championship last weekend (24/25 May).

The Salisbury-based driver went straight from Imola to Monte Carlo for the fifth event of his first full FIA Formula 2 season, competing on the support bill for the legendary Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix with Van Amersfoort Racing.

It would be the first visit to the Principality for the series rookie, but it was not to be a daunting one as Bennett - backed by partners Pangea Insurance, StreetSharp Ltd, Lonetree Limited and Lewco Holdings Limited - immediately looked at home in free practice around the street circuit as he lowered his lap times in the run up to qualifying on Friday.

That would be a split session, with Bennett's outing sadly interrupted by incidents around him that limited him to P11 on the timesheets. Once the results of the two segments were combined, he would have to fight back from the final row of the grid across the weekend's two races.

The sprint race on Saturday started brightly for last year's GB3 vice-champion. He went for the lunge around the outside of his team-mate Rafael Villagómez and also grabbed the place from Cian Shields at the tight Lowes Hairpin with more grip on the wide line, before setting off after his next target. Unfortunately, a brush with the wall damaged his left-rear corner, forcing an early retirement.

Sunday was a very different story however. From a starting spot of P21, Bennett was forced to jam on the anchors as a collision between the leaders at Turn 1 created a huge traffic jam of stationary and damaged F2 machinery ahead of him. The BRDC Rising Star avoided damage, and was able to take the restart in P14 with the chance to take a gamble on strategy.

He did so with an early change to fresher rubber, which allowed him to jump Sami Meguetounif and then chase after Shields. He made light work of the AIX driver, diving inside under braking heading out of the tunnel to complete a wonderful move.

With a late safety car and subsequent red flag deployed for incidents ahead of him, it meant that although he could not make further progress on his fresher tyres, he had climbed an impressive 10 spots to bag himself a well-earned P11 finish at the chequered flag.

John Bennett: "My first time racing at Monaco and it was full of all the thrills and spills that you hear about!

"We came into the week with no expectations other than to try and learn as fast as possible and gain data early on in the week ahead of qualifying, and we did just that. Qualifying was tough and that really put us on the back foot at a track like this where it's hard to pass, and then in race one I just pushed a bit over the limit after a good start.

"Sunday went exactly in our favour for much of the race. We just avoided the mayhem, kept to our strategy and it massively paid off as we were almost able to climb into the top 10. Well done to the team as it was looking a tough weekend, but I think we all left with our heads held high and can take that to Spain this week."

The busy European leg continues for Bennett as he is instantly back in action to complete a triple-header of FIA Formula 2 Championship action in Barcelona this coming weekend (30 May/1 June).

Images from James Gasperotti.