The winners and losers from F2’s rollercoaster 2026 Monaco weekend

Credit: Dutch Photo Agency/Red Bull Content Pool

Formula 2’s annual visit to Monaco delivered several twists in the tale once again, with championship contenders coming a cropper, and a pole-sitter once again failing to finish a race in the Principality. DIVEBOMB looks back at the drivers who gained the most from F2’s Monaco outing in 2026, and those who fell short on the street circuit. 

Winner: Nikola Tsolov

For much of the Feature Race on Sunday, Campos racer Nikola Tsolov may have consigned himself to second on the road. Having started on the front row, the Red Bull junior trailed pole-sitter Rafa Câmara along during a largely pedestrian first stint on the soft tyres. 

With tyre warm-up proving tough on the Monaco Street Circuit due to the absence of tyre warmers in F2, Campos opted to bring Tsolov in one lap earlier compared to his race-leading rival, hoping to make use of the out lap to warm up the tyres and bring them up to speed. 

Despite rejoining behind Alex Dunne once the leaders had pitted, he quickly moved past the Irishman on new tyres, quickly closing in on a slowing Câmara as the duo rounded the final corner. 

In a battle of whoever brakes late into the first turn, Tsolov would admit he braked earlier, knowing his Invicta rival was on colder tyres and prone to going off if he tried to keep battling side-by-side. “It was really close. I thought I was going out (off the track) as well, but I'm just glad I managed to get through,” the Campos man remarked post-race. 

Thereafter, it was a much calmer drive for Tsolov, who took the race lead when Kush Maini pitted on the final lap, taking home a second Feature Race win of 2026. The win, coming after a “messy” weekend in Canada, lifts him up to second in the drivers’ standings, one point off championship leader Gabriele Minì.    

Loser: Rafa Câmara

Câmara took pole - but had a difficult F2 outing in Monaco thereafter | Credit: Formula 2

It’s safe to say Câmara has experienced the ups and downs of a typical Monaco weekend. Knocking his Invicta into the wall at the Anthony Noghes corner in qualifying, the Brazilian may have counted his qualifying as good as done. He would have to eventually bring his yellow Invicta car into the pits, trundling along with a broken suspension on his left rear wheel. 

However, a late red flag gave him the impetus to mount a stunning comeback, through two fast laps at the end, the last of those bringing in the only lap time in the 1:20s and the highs of a special Monaco pole position after a session he termed tricky. 

But as is the case with Monaco in recent years, pole hasn’t been the ideal starting position. While Câmara looked set for a definitive Monaco victory at the halfway mark, as he kept Tsolov behind, his race would take a dramatic turn for the worse in the cold. 

Rejoining the circuit in second, but on cold tyres, the Monaco pole-sitter still had a buffer of over ten seconds to Tsolov as he tiptoed around the track, trying his best to build up the temperatures in his tyres. However, this buffer was quickly eroded heading onto Lap 35, the Bulgarian driver instead looking to capitalise on a rare opportunity to overtake into Sainte-Dévote.     

Câmara locked up heading into the corner, going straight into the run-off area and coming to a halt. This incident came as much to the surprise and dismay of the Invicta pit wall, with Câmara’s ugly radio exchange with his engineer drawing plenty of post-race criticism. 

A horror breakdown in Monaco leaves Invicta with plenty to do ahead of a critical European leg of the season, if they are to continue mounting a run for the hat trick of championships. 

Winner: DAMS 

Beganovic scored a second F2 podium of 2026 in Monaco | Credit: DAMS

DAMS have had a big season of “what ifs” all along in 2026, with Dino Beganovic’s twin mechanical failures ending hopes of a big result in Melbourne and Canada’s Feature Races. 

But when he has looked on song, Beganovic has rarely been troubled. Second in Miami after an epic three-way tussle for victory with Câmara and Mini brought his first podium of the season, and Monaco was another example of Beganovic capitalising on the opportunity to bring home the big points. 

The Swedish racer found himself several seconds behind Maini’s ART in the Feature Race, who was slithering down the streets of Monaco on his new tyres. While the Indian driver defended his position in the tunnel, Beganovic managed to get alongside into the Nouvelle chicane to take the final podium spot in the Feature Race, as both went off the track. 

“I'm very confident I did the right thing there,” Beganovic said, reflecting on the final moments of his Monaco Feature Race. “I'm very sure I could have made the corner because I had the tyres in (up to the temperature). And just in case, I tried to let him pass in the exit. But he wasn't really willing to do that.”

The Ferrari junior has often looked quick during qualifying in 2026, even taking the opening pole of the year in Australia. But Monaco is where it all played out well for Beganovic, as he started fifth on the road. An excellent start got him ahead of Martinius Stenshorne, before he capitalised on Câmara’s retirement and Maini’s cold tyres for third place, ahead of a crucial stage of the season. 

Adding to the French team’s excellent weekend was Roman Bilinski notching up a sprint race podium, his first in the championship. All in all, both drivers qualified and finished in the points, bringing up a positive weekend for DAMS in Monaco.     

Loser: Gabriele Mini

It would be a difficult one to place championship leader Minì in this section of the article for the Monaco weekend, given his strengths around the Principality circuit. He still leaves the venue in the championship lead, albeit by one point. The Italian driver also leaves Monaco with his podium streak intact, with five appearances in five years around here. 

Starting third for the sprint race, the MP Motorsport man kept his position to Bilinski ahead, doing just enough in a quiet Monaco sprint ahead of Joshua Dürksen and Beganovic. “It's really risky for very little reward. So in my head, there was never a plan to try and overtake,” Minì reflected, on the sprint race. 

While Minì’s approach of maximising his points haul worked in the sprint, his Feature Race came undone after the mandatory pit stop. Running fifth in the order, he was the first driver in the top 10 to pit off his red-walled soft tyres, on Lap 26. 

The super soft tyre would be very difficult to bring up to speed, as several drivers would find out, and with 15 laps to do on this compound, the Italian would fall back behind the likes of a battling Bilinski and Noel León. What looked to have been a comfortable points score eventually resulted in a difficult 11th position finish, as he slipped out of the points.

Minì has regularly mentioned he has been on the backfoot with regards to pace, and MP Motorsport will be looking for more promising returns come the crucial European leg of the season.     

Winner: Kush Maini

Maini’s Monaco weekend was largely subdued this year, but there were still flashes of the Indian driver being able to show his potential. 

It wasn’t quite the Monaco sprint win he took last year, but the ART man looked superbly quick in Group B qualifying on Friday. Despite coming under fire for his incident with Laurens van Hoepen at the chicane (more on that later), Maini’s strong turn of pace put him a quarter of a second clear for much of the session.

With the likes of Tsolov and Stenshorne getting ahead at the end, Maini was set to start sixth on the grid. However, a three-place grid drop for his incident in qualifying relegated him down the order, to eighth for the sprint and ninth for the Feature Race. 

The Indian driver grabbed two points after making up a position on Dunne early in the race, before stabilising behind the other Rodin car of Stenshorne in the sprint. 

It was in the Feature Race, though, where Maini and ART attempted to take a bold call on the strategy, running the durable soft tyre longer than others in the hope of a safety car interruption.

With several drivers tripping up on their out laps on the super soft tyre, the ART man was one of only two drivers to pit on the final lap, rejoining a stellar third, over six seconds ahead of Beganovic’s blue DAMS car. 

He would be grateful for the margin behind, though, after a lock up at Mirabeau corner and jittery moments in the second sector brought Beganovic into play only by the tunnel section. Despite both going off the track at the Nouvelle chicane, the DAMS man remained ahead, with Maini left to fend from the chasing Stenshorne and Ritomo Miyata. 

A deep defence into the Rascasse and Anthony Noghes corner complexes helped Maini secure fourth, albeit by only 0.091 seconds, notching up his second top-four finish of the season. 

It was in this stage of 2025 when Maini found a critical breakthrough, and he will be looking to carry over the good form from Monaco into the rest of the European races.   

Loser: Laurens van Hoepen

The unfortunate truth about Monaco still remains. Qualifying is everything. Trident’s Laurens van Hoepen found that out early into his Group B qualifying session on Friday. 

As he rounded the Nouvelle chicane on his preparation laps, Maini spied a gap heading into the chicane, and attempted to make his way ahead of the Trident, in a bid to claim a better track position onto his flying lap. 

However, as van Hoepen came across, he clipped Maini, spinning around before being stuck on the kerb. The resultant red flag would see the Dutch driver out of qualifying, relegated to a last row grid slot for both races. 

For a driver who had taken pole in the preceding round in Canada, and had taken podiums in Melbourne and Miami, it was a major blow to his chances of scoring valuable points and mount a comeback after his DNF in the Canadian Feature Race. 

With van Hoepen not scoring, it marked Trident’s first non-scoring event of the season, as they look to build momentum heading into Spain and the rest of the season. 

Winner: Emerson Fittipaldi Jr

Credit: Formula 2

AIX Racing appeared to have found a strong turn of pace in Canada, with both Emerson Fittipaldi Jr and Cian Shields notching up fifth position finishes in either race of the weekend. 

While both drivers qualified towards the bottom of the grid, it was all about staying out of trouble for Fittipaldi. Pitting early alongside the likes of Sebastián Montoya and Rafael Villagómez for the soft tyre, the Brazilian’s tyres were well up to temperature by the time the top half of the grid made their mandatory pit stops. 

As the likes of Câmara, Minì and those in the lower half of the top 10 faded away on their super soft tyres, Fittipaldi managed to rise up to seventh on the road, bringing home valuable points for AIX Racing around one of the most demanding venues on the calendar. 

Fittipaldi’s unusual path of coming to F2 from Eurocup-3 definitely brought about questions about how quickly he would adapt, and Monaco was evidence of his calmness and keeping his head cool in a race when several drivers came a cropper.  

Loser: Joshua Durksen

If it was heartbreak on one side of the Invicta garage, the other side didn’t have as much to celebrate either. 

Joshua Dürksen’s weekend should have been fairly straightforward when he qualified fifth in Group B qualifying, which would put him on reverse grid pole for the sprint race on Saturday. However, a penalty for impeding Maini at the Hairpin meant he was penalised three places for both races of the weekend. 

While he would come home fourth in the sprint, taking home five points, the penalty cost him big in the Feature Race, as the Paraguayan driver started only 13th on the road. Invicta opted to keep him out on the soft tyre until late in the race, with Dürksen eventually pitting late in the race and coming home a disappointing 15th. 

It marked a tough outing in all for the reigning constructors’ champions, and leaves the team with plenty of catching up to do in the subsequent rounds. 

Winner: Rodin Motorsport

Credit: Alex Dunne Racing via Facebook

If Canada was vindication, Monaco only added more to the talk of Rodin Motorsport’s duo being among the strongest on the grid, when they manage to stay out of incidents. 

One year ago, Dunne faced the wrath of being responsible for the massive Turn 1 wreck in the Feature Race. This time, he drove a much calmer race from third on the grid, coming home in second and taking home plenty of points. 

The Irishman too reflected that patience was key, as his now more-experienced self believed in bringing home valuable points in the situation, rather than going for the outright victory when it wasn’t on the cards. 

“I think no matter how little or how big they are, you just need to bring home the points every weekend because I think even the little ones, they always add up towards the end of the year,” Dunne reflected, having learnt from last year when he led the championship early doors, but came home only fifth. 

The Rodin man has been quick in Feature Races, scoring back-to-back second places in Canada and Monaco, after incidents in Melbourne and Miami saw him leave with no points, and only sprint podiums. 

Rodin’s positive weekend only got better as Stenshorne too brought home more points in both races, with sixth in the sprint and a last-corner pass on Miyata bringing him fifth. Both drivers now sit level on points in the top four now, sitting pretty to launch their championship campaigns in 2026.   

Loser: Ollie Goethe

If it’s gone strongly on one side of the MP Motorsport garage, the other has been left searching for answers, once again. 

Ollie Goethe’s start to 2026 has been a shadow of his teammate’s performances. Despite finishing fourth in Melbourne and starting on an optimistic note, he has failed to score points in the remaining weekends of the season. 

Although the German driver qualified 12th for the weekend’s races, and started 11th for the Feature Race, he was unable to make it up into the points. Having pitted earlier than others for the super soft tyres, he fell behind the Trident of van Hoepen, even making contact at the Hairpin on Lap 32. 

Coming home in 14th, Goethe left Monaco with no returns, and will be looking for a big lift off in the next few races in his sophomore F2 campaign.