Joshua Duerksen impressed the paddock with his F2 rookie season just the year prior. His strong performance fuelled his and his team AIX Racing’s coming into the 2025 season.
Evolution of Duerksen’s racing style
Duerksen reflected on how his personal racing style has changed throughout his journey to becoming a Formula 2 race winner. He described his racing style as smooth and controlled. Yet during on track battles, it was aggressive enough that allowed him to be fighting for top positions. Duerksen also mentioned how being in tuned with his car also played a row in his driving.
“My driving style changes depending on if it’s qualifying or a race. In a race it’s quite a smooth style. It has a lot to do with feeling out the car and squeezing everything out of it but in a controlled manner. I feel I have a pretty smooth driving style and a really good feel with the car which allows myself to adapt lap by lap to whatever the car needs in order to be driven quickly.“
“In the races, in terms of overtaking and defending, I’m quite aggressive. I think that’s what you need in order to be fighting for the top positions in F2. My style has a good feel with the car and I’m aggressive when I need to be going wheel-to-wheel.“
Being quick to adapt
Another set of skills that Duerksen seems to have mastered is his ability to adapt quickly to the car and to upgrades. Stating that his successes of his rookie season was a result of this characteristic of his racing style. Despite the big jump from F3 to F2, Duerksen says that he was able to learn the ropes quickly.
“I think it’s also a positive aspect of my style that it allows me to adapt quickly to whichever car I’m driving. So it was a big jump for me to go up to F2, but I think I adapted very quickly.I felt very comfortable after day one in the car and started to understand how the car wanted to be driven. So it was a big step, but I think I had a good understanding quickly.“
Oversteer or Understeer
Like all other racing drivers, Durksen has his own personal preference when it comes to the matter of oversteer and understeer. While neither is desirable, drivers often have their own preferences and strategies to manage them. The Paraguayan has a clear preference of oversteer, stating that it can feel more agile and responsive even if it’s less stable. Many drivers do tend to prefer oversteer as it can lead to faster cornering speeds and a more dynamic driving experience.
“I’m on the oversteer side of things. I really hate understeer. It’s the worst feeling a driver can have, I think. If it’s oversteer or understeer, I prefer oversteer. It’s more tricky to drive but it’s just quicker overall.You can still control it and do something about it whereas with understeer, you can’t really do much apart from slow down more and try and get the car rotated. So overall, you’ll be losing lap time.“
“With oversteer, it’s a bit different. You can control it a bit more and lose less lap time. In qualifying you want that rotation but with a strong rear. It’s not like I’m ice drifting around the whole track, because that’s obviously not quick. But if you gave me the choice, I’d always pick oversteer.”
Learning from experience
Duerksen also reflected on how his past racing experiences has contributed to the improvement and evolution of his driving style.
“Every time I look back at an old video of myself, I just think, ‘wow, how did I drive like that?’ It just comes with more experience and more mileage, your driving always gets better.“
The Paraguayan who is a race winner in multiple categories, including UAE Formula 4, as well as the Italian F4 and ADAC Formula 4 Championships. Brought up how he learnt from his mistakes that he wasn’t even aware of making during his times in Formula 4. He also listed his maiden win in ADAC Formula 4 from 2020 as a career defining moment.
“There were points, especially in my Formula 4 times, I think there’s so many things you could be doing better, but in the moment, you don’t realise because you’re still learning. You have to do mistakes to learn, so there were many times I thought I could have been a lot better.”
“I think it started with my very first win in German Formula 4, it was in Nürburgring. I think it really was a mega breakthrough moment for me. Hockenheim was a really tough race, the driving was on the limit and with Gabriele Minì behind me, it was really tough. It was qualifying laps in a row, trying to do no mistakes with a little bit of a broken car. And that was an amazing experience, but I think my step started the race before at Nürburgring.”
“Hockenheim was the confirmation where I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. I realised I had the speed and the talent, I just need to put it all together.”
Reflecting on his rookie F2 season
Duerksen finished 10th in the 2024 F2 Championship and added two wins under his belt the same season. A Sprint Race win in Baku and a Feature Race win in the season finale at Abu Dhabi.
A key moment from the season prior for the Paraguayan was his maiden podium finish at the 2024 F2 Imola GP. The first moment of the season where Duerksen proved he deserved his rightful spot on the F2 paddock both to himself and to paddock. It was even more impressive since he was in a new car with a team that struggled the season prior and it was only round 4 of the 2024 F2 Championship which happened to be his rookie season.
“Another breakthrough moment was my first podium in Formula 2 in Imola. I was coming off a tough season in FRECA, and people weren’t expecting a lot from me. To be on the podium, against all the odds, I did a podium in a new car in a new Championship with a team that also had a tough year the season before.”
“To come and do a podium in Round 4, it was a really big statement for me. It’s a high level and I got a podium in my rookie season with a team that struggled the year before. It gave me a lot of confidence and was a moment where I was like ‘OK, I can do this’.”
On his two wins from his rookie F2 season
To Duerksen his Imola podium was much more significant compared to his two wins from his rookie F2 season. The wins however was a sign that he and the team were on the right track.They were also a great boost of motivation and confidence for the AIX racing driver.
“That was confirmed later in the year with the win in Baku and podium in Monza, and then the race win in Abu Dhabi. Those were great achievements and maybe breakthrough moments. Maybe not as much of an emotional impact as Imola, but confirmation to myself that I can do this. It really helps you to keep going. “
“It gives me confidence that what the team and I are doing is working and that we’re able to do it. So we just have to keep working as we are, and more results will come. It’s a boost in confidence, motivation and energy.”
