Leonardo Fornaroli is doing everything right, and somehow he’s still the quiet name in the 2026 conversation.
The 20-year-old Italian has built a career on making the scoreboard bleed. He took the 2024 Formula 3 title without winning a race—two non-scores all year, seven podiums, relentless execution—and now he’s applying the same pressure in Formula 2. With four rounds left in 2025, Fornaroli leads the standings by 17 points over Aston Martin-backed Jak Crawford, having missed the points just twice and added three wins for Invicta. Next stop is Monza on 6-7 September. Good luck betting against him there.
This is a familiar script for Invicta. Gabriel Bortoleto did the F3-to-F2 double last season and parlayed it into a Sauber F1 seat. He wasn’t tied to an F1 academy either. Yet while Bortoleto inevitably found a home, Fornaroli’s name isn’t echoing around the 2026 paddock corridors in the same way. Alpine is an obvious suitor. The incoming Cadillac project is another. But so far? Crickets.
James Robinson can’t make sense of it. Invicta’s team boss, who spent two decades in F1, calls Fornaroli a “Moneyball” pick—less noise, more data.
“He doesn’t do the big banzai stuff, he doesn’t court attention,” Robinson told Motorsport.com. “But if you want a stable reference, lap after lap, to develop a car—Leo does that better than anyone in F2 right now. It’s mind-blowing he hasn’t been announced for an F1 role already.”
There’s a hint of understatement in the way Fornaroli goes about it. No drama, no radio theatrics, just mileage and margins. That’s gold dust for 2026, when the technical reset will make correlation and clean feedback worth as much as raw pace. Robinson adds that Fornaroli’s growth curve is at least as steep as Bortoleto’s was, and calls his race-day execution “unflappable.”
The risk for teams is obvious: wait too long and you miss the value buy. The risk for Fornaroli is smaller: win the title and the phone usually rings. Invicta has already shown the pathway works. The numbers say he’s the next one through.
If nobody moves, Robinson’s verdict is simple enough to stick on a recruitment slide: passing on Fornaroli for 2026 would be “the deal of the century” gone begging.
He’s not the loudest candidate. He might be the smartest one.
