Following an action-packed Qualifying session and a series of post-session penalties, the FIA Formula 2 Championship returned to Spa-Francorchamps for the Sprint Race at the 2026 Belgian Grand Prix, with a reshuffled grid.
Sebastian Montoya started from the front row alongside Martinius Stenshorne, while Roman Bilinski and Joshua Dürksen occupied the second row. Elsewhere, penalties handed to Emerson Fittipaldi Jr., Rafael Villagómez and Cian Shields further reshuffled the order towards the back of the grid ahead of lights out.
Green Lights in Belgium
As the lights went out around the windy roads of Spa-francorchamps, pole sitter Montoya took the lead. The PREMA driver’s lead was short lived however, as Martinius Stenshorne swooped in as the race leader.
Roman Bilinski meanwhile, had a slower start which sent him stumbling back down the grid to ninth place. AIX’s Cian Shields was the person to bring out the first yellow flags. The driver battled with Ritomo Miyata, the former was sent spinning without grip into the barriers. Campos’ Noel Leon also retired from the race after technical issues.
Restart Battles and Heartbreaks
As the race came back to full speed, Dino Beganovic and Montoya continued their 8 lap long battle for thrid place. Championship leader Nikola Tsolov joined the fight with the two. The Bulgarian starting to add pressure for the Swede.
Joshua Dürksen and Stenshorne started a game of cat and mouse after the former took the lead of the race around the eleventh lap. Championship Contender Gabriele Mini and Nico Varonne took a step back from the race after falling victims to technical difficulties.
All the drivers picked up their speeds and wore their tyres out. The penalties rolled our right alongside them as the black and white flags were handed to a bunch of drivers. Kush Maini was the first person who was handed a 5-second penalty.
John Bennett’s race came to an abrupt end after he suffered an engine failure. The incident his Trident into a series of spins and shedding his rear bodywork. The incident prompted the deployment of a second Safety Car during the FIA Formula 2 Sprint Race at the 2026 Belgian Grand Prix.
Fortunately, despite the dramatic nature of the incident, Bennett avoided contact with the barriers or any of the surrounding cars, as the rest of the field reacted quickly to steer clear of the spinning Trident.
Great Getaways
Race leader Joshua Dürksen was noted for making more than one change of direction while defending, but Race Control ultimately took no further action after reviewing the incident. At the same time, marshals continued clearing John Bennett’s stranded Trident from the circuit following his earlier engine failure.
The Safety Car peeled into the pits with just one lap remaining, setting up a thrilling dash to the chequered flag. Dürksen judged the restart perfectly, immediately pulling out a small gap to Martinius Stenshorne behind.
Further back, Nikola Tsolov made his move on Sebastián Montoya, opening the floodgates in the closing stages. Alexander Dunne, Rafael Câmara, Roman Bilinski and Oliver Goethe all followed through, relegating the Sprint Race polesitter down the order. After starting from the front of the grid, Montoya ultimately crossed the line in ninth, narrowly missing out on the points.
Results
Joshua Dürksen took his second win of the season followed by Stenshorne and Beganovic on the podium. Championship leader Tsolov came in fourth followed by Dunne, Câmara, Bilinski and Goethe rounding out the point scoring positions.
Formula 2 returns for the featured race at 10:00 local time
Featured Image Credits: Formula 2 on X