After Friday’s eventual Qualifying ended with Rafael Câmara claiming top spot, yesterday’s sprint race saw the reverse grid produce a first win of the season for Kush Maini.
Today, Câmara starts alongside Alex Dunne. With both winners from last year’s Spanish GP weekend graduating from Formula 2, a new winner will be crowned today after 37 laps around the famous Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Title Fight
We are now almost halfway through the Formula 2 2026 season and the championship is still incredibly tight. Championship leader Gabriele Minì starts today’s race from third with his rival Nikola Tsolov in fifth. Minì will be hoping to edge out his 3-point lead over the Bulgarian, who is coming off of a high winning the Monaco Feature race last weekend.
Away They Go!
A slow start from Câmara results in Dunne taking the lead of the race into Turn 1. Elsewhere, a great start from Tsolov temporarily bumps him to fourth ahead of Minì. Unfortunately for the Bulgarian, who chose to start on Hard tyres, Minì retakes the position immediately. After being unable to get off the grid for the formation lap, Oliver Goethe started the race from the pits. However, immediately after exiting the pit lane, his car stops on the side of the pit exit, bringing out the first Safety Car of the race.
On the restart, due to the differences in tyre strategy, Tsolov begins to drop down the grid. Elsewhere, track violations start to add up for many drivers as they struggle with degradation early on in this race.
Box, Box
With the high number of high-speed right handed turns on the Spanish circuit, the tyre degradation quickly becomes and issues for the soft tyre runners. Martinius Stenshorne is the first to pit and change to Hards on lap 10 of the Feature race. Elsewhere, Câmara’s team urges the young Brazilian to extend the his tyre life for as long as possible. As others struggle with grip on the slowly deteriorating soft tyres, Câmara continues to fight hard, challenging Dunne on multiple occasions on lap 13.
Câmara Has High Hopes
Câmara is one of the few drivers who started on soft tyre still out on track. His impressive lap times keep him a pit stop ahead of the hard tyre runners led by Dunne. The Ferrari Junior eventually heads into the pits on lap 23 of the race. After a slightly delayed pit stop, Câmara comes out in ninth, just over five seconds behind Dunne. After a battle with Minì, Dunne obtains the lead of the race as the last alternate strategy drivers pit for softs. Leading the pack of alternate strategy drivers, Tsolov sits 14 seconds behind the leaders. With 12 laps to go, he will be hoping to close that gap and fight for a podium in order to maintain his position in the championship.
Fight for Fourth
In between the leaders and Tsolov, the fight for fourth carries on as Dino Beganovic and Rafael Villagomez continue on with their battle from the start of the race. Even though Tsolov eventually speeds past them, the two drivers continue to fight for position behind the leaders.
Five Laps to Go
With fresher tyres, Câmara takes the lead of the race. With Tsolov on fresh soft tyres, the battle for the win comes down to the last laps of this race, as Tsolov closes in on Dunne and Minì, who sit in second and third, respectively.
After some incredibly clean fighting between Dunne and Tsolov, the Bulgarian gets ahead of Dunne into P2. With only two laps to go, he needs to close the seven-second gap to Câmara if he hopes to win the race.
The gap stabilises at eight seconds across the finish line giving Câmara his first victory of the 2026 season, a year after his Formula 3 win at the circuit.
Tsolov finishes in second, which is enough for the Red Bull Junior to take the lead of the championship. Dunne closes out the podium places, in third, after a tough battle with Minì.
Feature Image Credit: Formula 2