Invicta, Mercedes, and new F2 tracks: Joshua Duerksen on his unconventional path

A different path

Joshua Duerksen is not your average Formula 2 driver. Most of his rivals grew up threading karts through purpose-built European circuits from the moment they could reach the pedals. Duerksen did it differently.

He began karting on a single 600-metre loop in Paraguay, a country where motorsport has historically meant offroad rallying, not single-seaters.

"When I started go-karting, we only had one go-kart track in the whole of Paraguay - 600 metres long, very bumpy, not in a great state," he says. "The first year I started, we only had two layouts: the original and then backwards. That was it, nothing else. And the lap was only 30 seconds long."

Three years of karting into Formula 4, and then forgoing Formula 3 to race in F2: it is the kind of trajectory that could have broken a lesser talent, or one befitting a prodigy, but Duerksen believes it speaks to his unconventional path.

"I felt I was behind - with the experience, with the knowledge, with everything. So I really had to work hard, super hard, just to get into rhythm much quicker, to catch up [to] the guys who already had 10 years in motorsport. I only had three."

"I think this for sure helped me a lot to build the character I am nowadays."

Melbourne to Miami

That character is evident, but the results took a second to show up.

With AIX Racing in 2024, he had to wait until round 4 to score a strong result, with third place in the Imola feature race in Italy.

Now, it is undeniable that Duerksen is a contender for regular wins, if not the title, in 2026.

In 2025, he won the first sprint race of the season in Australia with AIX Racing; he repeated that feat with Invicta Racing in 2026.

Asked whether there is anything to it, he says, "I prefer just not to dig into it and just let it happen. But it's a fun fact."

Now the calendar has delivered something new in 2026: Miami and Montreal, two replacement rounds that nobody on the grid has visited in an F2 car. For once, everyone arrives on equal footing - a leveller that Duerksen relished.

"It's two new tracks for me and, of course, for everybody. So that makes things a lot more exciting."

Sight-reading: Preparing for a new F2 venue

Duerksen wasted no time getting acquainted. The moment the Miami and Montreal rounds were confirmed, he was in the simulator.

"I jumped straight away to get already a first feeling, a first impression about this track. Me and Invicta, we've been driving on the sim already, to get some basic information about the track, about the driving, just to have a clearer picture early on."

Personal analysis of previous F1 races followed - studying overtaking zones, race development, and qualifying patterns.

He had already formed a clear picture of what Miami demanded. "I would say sector two and three are more like Baku [Azerbaijan] style - very super low-speed corners, very tight and narrow.

And sector one reminds me a bit of Jeddah [Saudi Arabia], just this flow where you have a lot of combined high-speed corners, where if you get the first one wrong, the rest of the lap gets wrong."

It is a vivid, experienced read of a track he had never actually driven in anger. In Miami, he achieved P5 in the sprint race, and P10 in the feature event.

With F2's compressed format offering only a handful of practice laps before qualifying, that pre-event groundwork is essential.

"I think it's going to be at least 80% of the work done before we arrive," Duerksen explains. "We need to be ready for the first corner, for the first laps, because every lap is super valuable.

“Let's say we get maybe six or seven laps in free practice, and then we go straight to qualifying. So you want to maximise those seven laps - you cannot risk going from practice to qualifying and doing a big change without knowing what the effect will be."

Invicta & Mercedes

The switch to Invicta Racing in 2026 - the team that has fielded the last two F2 champions in Leonardo Fornaroli and Gabriel Bortoleto - was a significant career move, and Duerksen is candid about what he has found at the British team.

"They make you feel like you're part of the team very, very quickly. You gain confidence with them super fast."

He says he can already see the DNA behind the team's championship pedigree. "How close they are as a team is for sure a fundamental fact in why they are quick. Working with them and seeing how things work internally is really amazing."

Alongside his F2 campaign runs something else entirely: a junior driver role with the Mercedes Formula 1 team. It is a relationship Duerksen describes carefully - absorbing rather than rushing.

"At the moment it's just about absorbing information as much as I can, learning and listening and asking a lot of questions."

Whether a seat in an actual Mercedes is on the horizon, he hedges with the pragmatism of someone who understands the game. 

"Right now, my main focus is Formula 2. That's what they [Mercedes] also said. Let's see. I think it will depend a lot on results, and more in the middle of the year, I may know better what's going to happen."

Back in Paraguay, a generation of youngsters is now kart racing partly because of what Duerksen has done. He speaks about it with genuine warmth.

"When I was racing, in my category, we [had] maybe six go-kart [drivers], eight go-karts, not more than that. Now I have never seen so many go-kart drivers racing in Paraguay."

The support, he says, motivates him every time he straps in.

As for this season's ambition, he is clear. The championship is the long game. But there is one milestone he wants first.

"What I would really like this year is to get a pole position. I think I have the ability. I've got the car for sure."

A man who learned to race on a 30-second loop, now chasing a Formula 2 title. The path was never ordinary - and the driver isn’t, either.