- F2 rookie to Mercedes development driver: Joshua Duerksen’s two-year rise.
- Twelve podiums at a mid-grid team convinced one of F1’s giants to come calling.
- Now at Invicta Racing, the 22-year-old Paraguayan-German aims for the title.
Joshua Duerksen is a 22-year-old Formula 2 driver and already has a seat at one of Formula 1’s most powerful teams.
The Paraguayan-German driver, who made his Formula 2 debut just two years ago with a mid-grid outfit, is now a Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 development driver heading into his third season in the series with reigning Teams’ Champions Invicta Racing.
It has been a rise built not on luck, but on deliberate, unglamorous work.
The rookie years: learning at speed
When Duerksen arrived in Formula 2 in 2024, he did so with AIX Racing, a team not known for challenging the front of the grid.
The circumstances were far from ideal for a first-year driver. Yet he still managed four podiums and two wins in that opening season, finishing inside the top ten in the championship.
By the time he left AIX at the end of 2025, his two-year tally stood at 12 podiums and four wins. Those numbers meant something precisely because of where they came from.
Duerksen has spoken openly about how much the step up demanded of him. Speaking to the FIA Formula 2 website, he described the scale of the adjustment.
“It’s just a big journey to be honest, super big. I can tell you in every area I can imagine, on the mental side, on the physical side, on my engineering knowledge side, setup knowledge, tyre management knowledge, leadership, prioritising different things, just everything.”
Formula 2 gives drivers very little time on track. Duerksen responded by turning every available moment into a lesson.
He broke laps down corner by corner, segment by segment, extracting every fraction of understanding he could before each race weekend.
It was the mindset of a professional, long before the results confirmed it.
Growing pains and breakthroughs
His second season, still at AIX, was when the paddock truly started to take notice. Duerksen doubled his podium count to eight finishes in 2025.
He then closed the year with a Feature Race victory at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, saving his sharpest performance for the final page.
Winning at the season finale, at one of the calendar’s most-watched venues, was a deliberate kind of punctuation.
When asked to identify the area of his driving that had improved most, Duerksen pointed to racecraft. It had always been a strength, but he had sharpened it into something more reliable.
“I’d say my racecraft. Generally, I think it was already a strong point for myself, but I think I just improved it even more, and I think this helped me to score all the podiums last year,” he said.
The growth stretched beyond technique. Duerksen has reflected on how racing in Formula 2, on the same circuits and the same weekends as Formula 1, pushed him to keep raising his standards.
He has also been candid about the gap between the driver who first sat in an F2 car and the one who exists today.
“We’ve been through a lot of stuff, good moments, bad moments,” he said.
“But at the end of the day, I have grown a lot, and I see myself as being much stronger, much more focused and mature compared to when I jumped into F2.”
The Mercedes announcement: external validation
In February 2026, Mercedes confirmed Duerksen as one of their development drivers in Formula 1. His role will involve simulator work and Testing of Previous Cars programmes alongside the team.
For a driver who had spent two seasons proving himself at a team without the resources of the top outfits, the announcement was significant.
His response on Instagram was measured but warm.
“I’m super excited to be joining the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team as a development driver. I can’t wait to start working with these guys and help the team succeed this year. Just really excited for what’s to come.”
But it was in a Formula 2 feature interview that Duerksen revealed what the deal truly meant to him. He described it as confirmation from outside his own bubble that his progress was real.
“Signing with Mercedes also shows me that people outside my circle are seeing my progress,” he said.
“It’s not only me that is seeing progress. So, when these things happen, it’s like a clear step or a clear statement for me that things are going right and that I’m on the right path.”
He added that the partnership gave him something more useful than recognition. It gave him proof.
“Working with one of the best teams in F1 is proof to me that I’m going in the right direction, and while there’s still a longer way to go, it gives more motivation because I know things are working and I’ll keep working to make this even better.”
Invicta Racing and championship ambitions in 2026
The Mercedes deal arrived alongside an equally significant team switch. Duerksen joined Invicta Racing for 2026, the outfit that won the Formula 2 Teams’ Championship the previous year.
He lines up alongside Rafael Câmara, the reigning Formula 3 champion.
The pairing is one of the most formidable on the grid. Duerksen is no longer gathering experience quietly. He is in a team built to win, and he has arrived with that expectation clearly on his shoulders.
Experience, he has said, is something a driver simply cannot fake.
“There are just some things you can only get by experience,” Duerksen explained. “Now, with two years of experience in F2, I think I am very prepared to head into this season and fight at the top.”
The frantic note-taking phase of his early career has settled into something more assured.
“Of course, I still do my notes, I still investigate, I still try to learn more stuff,” he said, “but for sure the basics are committed to memory now.”
The 2026 season opened in Melbourne with a statement. Duerksen won the Sprint Race at Albert Park from second on the grid, going back-to-back at the venue after a similarly strong showing the previous year.
At a late-race restart, he executed a clean launch, built a decisive gap and crossed the line without being challenged.
It was a composed, unhurried performance. The kind that only comes when a driver has stopped searching for confidence and simply has it.
From his single-seater debut in 2019 to a Mercedes development role and an Invicta Racing seat in seven years, Duerksen’s story has moved in one direction.
Formula 2 has been his classroom, and the signs suggest graduation is getting closer.
