Winners and Losers from a defining F2 Barcelona weekend
- Vyas Ponnuri
- 11 hours ago
- 6 min read
Rafa Câmara converted pole into victory in Barcelona, while ART's Kush Maini returned to the front after a dominant sprint. DIVEBOMB picks out the winners and losers from F2’s latest outing in Barcelona.
Winner: Rafa Câmara
Invicta’s Rafa Câmara bounced back stunningly after a tough Monaco weekend, taking pole and leading an Invicta 1-2 in qualifying. The Brazilian had already come into the weekend with more enthusiasm, banking on his excellent F3 showing in 2025.
Qualifying has undoubtedly been Câmara’s strongest suit in his rookie F2 campaign, backed by his second consecutive pole of 2026, but you could call the Feature Race one of his finest motor races.
Despite losing the lead early to Alex Dunne, the Invicta man drove a full nine laps longer than the Irishman on his soft tyres, pitting on Lap 23 after a barnstorming opening stint. With 14 laps and a six-second gap to close up to the leading pair of Dunne and Gabriele Minì, Câmara had his task cut out.
The Brazilian made light work of the two Alpine juniors ahead on much fresher tyres, eventually driving away into a 12-second gap for his first victory of the season.
While it was perfect redemption after Monaco’s heartbreak, Barcelona reaffirmed Câmara’s sheer race pace and raw abilities. Formula 2’s European portion has seen Invicta’s rookies take a step up and win for the first time in the championship, and this was Câmara’s turn to soak in the joys of a maiden F2 win.
Loser: Joshua Dürksen
If it was joy on one side, it was despair and agony on the other side of the Invicta garage. Invicta’s Joshua Dürksen was best pleased to have qualified on the front row of the grid, alongside his teammate.
Penalties hit the Paraguayan after qualifying once again, though, this time five places each for both races. He would start only seventh for the Sunday Feature Race, and down in 14th for the Saturday sprint race.
Starting on the slower, hard tyres would see Dürksen drop positions to his rivals at the start of the Feature Race, as Invicta aimed to go longer into the race before their mandatory pit stop.
Dürksen’s weekend was summed up effectively when both Dunne and Minì surpassed him on either side of Turn 11 on Lap 23, on much fresher tyres. Pitting on the following lap, he rejoined well outside the top 10, only ending up 14th and leaving the Monaco-Barcelona double header with no points.
Winner: Nikola Tsolov
If Monaco was redemption, Barcelona was all about consolidation and confidence for Campos’ Nikola Tsolov.
Starting fifth in Saturday’s sprint, an excellent start saw Tsolov ascend to third as the pack reached Turn 1 in the sprint, passing Colton Herta’s Hitech and VAR’s Nico Varrone.
A move on teammate Noel León put him up in second, where he would run for most of the race. However, as Tsolov’s tyres slowly ran out of grip, he would be caught and passed by Minì, with contact between the pair in Turn 1 chipping the left end of Tsolov’s front wing.
Despite being shoved aside at Turn 7 by Herta, Tsolov would regain his podium after the Hitech man ran wide on the final lap. He would pull off a similar move on the American in the Feature Race into the same corner.
Going longer into the Feature Race on his hard tyres, the Campos man muscled his way up five places on soft tyres, executing a series of overtakes on his way to second.
The Bulgarian briefly led the championship, although a five-second penalty for overtaking Minì beyond track limits in Turns 10 and 11 dropped him off the podium. This reinstated Minì’s championship lead, with Tsolov now sitting second on 80 points.
Loser: Martinius Stenshorne
While Dunne rose to the fore in Barcelona, teammate Martinius Stenshorne endured his most difficult weekend of 2026.
He would end up marooned in 16th after failing to improve on his first lap, and later caught out by Miyata’s red flag. This would mark Stenshorne’s worst start, ending his pristine top-five qualifying record in 2026.
With qualifying majorly affecting the outcome of Barcelona’s races, the Rodin man couldn’t mount a comeback, finishing a lowly 18th and 17th during the weekend’s races. A 10-second time penalty in the sprint only added to his struggles.
With the top four occupying the prime spots during the Feature Race, Stenshorne ended up sliding down from third to seventh in the standings, leaving a race weekend pointless for the first time this year.
Winner: Alpine Academy
For the first time in 2026, all three Alpine-backed juniors showed during the Barcelona weekend, with Minì, Dunne and Kush Maini all scoring points in the sprint and feature races.
For Maini, it was a special redemption victory in the sprint. Starting second on the road, a brilliant start got him into the lead, and he never looked back. This marked his and ART’s first win of the season, coming with an emotional post-race radio message. Maini would also climb to finish ninth in the feature race after a slow start.
As for Dunne, a lap time deletion in qualifying for track limits left him last with eight minutes to go. However, the Irishman’s calmness under pressure saw him nail a stellar qualifying lap, keeping his top four starting record intact in 2026. He would eventually finish eighth in the sprint, before converting a front row starting position into a third consecutive runner-up finish on Sunday.
Championship leader Minì would once again bring about a composed race weekend, doing his best to maintain his lead in the standings. An excellent sprint would see him climb from sixth to second with the late overtake on Tsolov, while he left Barcelona with yet more silverware after the Bulgarian’s penalty lifted him to third on Sunday.
Winner: Trident
After a disastrous Monaco weekend, Trident roared back into the points superbly at Barcelona. Laurens van Hoepen topped free practice, giving the Italian team a solid base going into qualifying.
The Dutchman was on course to nail a top 10 start, although his final lap was aborted after the red flag was flown. He would eventually start 13th for both races, with teammate John Bennett further down in 18th.
Van Hoepen ascended eight positions from his starting grid slot to finish a strong fifth in the Feature Race, executing a special double overtake in his soft-tyred stint. Teammate Bennett drove his best F2 race so far, climbing up a staggering 11 positions on race day to finish seventh, taking his first points along with the fastest lap.
Loser: Van Amersfoort Racing
As successful as Trident’s run proved, Van Amersfoort Racing’s weekend only unravelled as it went on. Returning to the site of his maiden F2 podium in 2025, Rafael Villagómez put his VAR up to fifth on the ladder, while teammate Varrone lifted himself up to seventh with excellent second laps in qualifying.
Despite climbing up one position each after Dürksen’s penalty, this was the highest VAR would feature all weekend.
Both drivers found themselves sliding down the order all weekend, with Villagómez earning a five-second penalty for track limits, while Varrone suffered a ten-second penalty after his battle with Sebastián Montoya’s PREMA in the sprint.
Villagómez remains the only driver yet to score in 2026, while VAR remain rooted to the bottom of the standings after a scoreless Barcelona weekend.
Winner: Colton Herta
It’s only a small sample size of five weekends, but there’s no doubt Herta would be delighted after Barcelona, despite scoring only a handful of points.
For a start, the American earned his best starting position of the season, with eighth, having briefly run at the top of the timesheets in qualifying. This would translate into third for the Saturday sprint, where the former IndyCar man would put on his strongest drive of the season.
Despite losing positions to the Campos duo of Tsolov and León off the start, Herta kept his position up in fifth through the race, before climbing past the Mexican to fourth behind Minì. A last-lap error after passing Tsolov, though, cost him a maiden podium finish in F2.
Despite running up in seventh at one point, Herta would lose out to drivers on soft tyres late on, dropping to 15th in the feature race.
Loser: Ritomo Miyata
For the first time in 2026, Hitech’s Ritomo Miyata failed to score points during a race weekend. The Japanese driver, who had scored points here in 2024 and 2025, had a tougher outing this time.
Miyata looked set for yet another top 10 start before his chances of a great weekend ended with just under four minutes left in qualifying.
An off into the gravel at the final corner left him stranded, triggering a stoppage, one that Miyata was found to be responsible for. As a result, he would lose his best lap time of the session, starting from the rear of the grid for both races.
Miyata would eventually finish 14th in the sprint race and 18th on Sunday, failing to match the pace of his rookie teammate Herta, dropping to 10th in the championship standings after his first non-score of 2026.
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