Formula 2 returned from a seven-week hiatus with a round at Miami this weekend. ART Grand Prix’s Kush Maini secured pole position on Friday, before championship leader Nikola Tsolov claimed Saturday’s sprint victory and MP Motorsport’s Gabriele Minì won on a damp Sunday. Feeder Series takes you through a turbulent weekend with five things we learned in F2’s North American debut.

By August Bamford

F2 delivered a thrilling weekend at the Miami International Autodrome, which started as a complete unknown before establishing itself as a true test of the championship’s competitive field. The challenges were vast: Saturday brought hot temperatures that forced drivers to manage their tyres carefully, while Sunday featured a damp circuit that gradually dried out, leaving a slippery surface in its wake. Some drivers rose to the occasion, including feature race podium finishers Dino Beganovic and Rafael Câmara, while others found themselves struggling in a constant fight against the conditions.

• Pre-weekend roundtable: The unique challenges F2’s frontrunners expect to face in new Miami round
• Qualifying report and quotes: ART’s Maini beats Câmara, Stenshorne to Miami F2 pole
• Sprint race report and quotes: Tsolov prevails in last-lap duel to win thrilling F2 sprint in Miami
• Feature race report and quotes: Minì masters the conditions for maiden F2 victory in Miami thriller

1. Minì continues impressive street circuit record 

Gabriele Minì’s record on street circuits in his junior career already stood out heading into Miami. He had taken back-to-back F3 victories in Monaco in 2023 and 2024 alongside F2 podiums in both Baku and Monaco. So on a tight, unforgiving Miami layout on which no F2 driver had raced before this weekend, Minì was well positioned to find his rhythm quickly; its characteristics mirrored those of the street circuits where he has historically excelled.

His opening weekend in Melbourne was quietly strong, with sixth place in the sprint and eighth in the feature. Miami, however, was a different test entirely. Minì again banked points with a seventh place in the sprint before emerging as a genuine contender in Sunday’s feature race.

As the race wore on, the fight for victory developed between Dino Beganovic and Rafael Câmara. But the longer that battle lasted, the more it opened the door for Minì to insert himself into contention. Capitalising on his rivals’ tyre degradation and subsequent errors in the final few laps, the MP Motorsport driver executed a decisive overtake on the penultimate lap. His management of the final lap was sufficient for him to cross the line unchallenged.

The victory moves Minì within one point of championship leader Nikola Tsolov. The upcoming calendar favors the Italian’s skillset, with Montreal’s close-walled Circuit Gilles Villeneuve followed by the same Monaco circuit where he took his previous car racing victory before this weekend’s. Still, if he wants to mount a serious championship challenge in 2026, Minì will need to demonstrate this level of execution across all circuit types. 

2. Another weekend to forget for Rodin and Dunne

Alex Dunne entered 2026 as the highest-placed returning driver, carrying the momentum of a 2025 campaign that yielded fifth in the standings, two wins, and eight podiums. On paper, the trajectory looked promising, and in some ways it still does. So far in 2026, Dunne has continued to deliver on the first two days of the weekend, qualifying within the top four and securing sprint race podiums in both Melbourne and Miami, but his Sundays have told a very different story.

In Melbourne, Dunne collided with teammate Martinius Stenshorne while the pair were running first and second, costing both drivers a huge haul of points. In Miami, another opportunity slipped away when he lost control in the slippery conditions on lap nine after going wide at the final corner of the track, venturing into the barriers. He had been chasing eventual race winner Minì for fifth place.

The result is a stark imbalance between pace and results. Dunne currently sits 10th in the standings on 12 points, all of which have come from sprint races. In a series in which feature races offer the highest points yield, he’s already losing ground to his championship rivals who have found consistency across both race formats. There is still time to recover – 12 rounds remain – but the margin for error is shrinking. 

Now a member of the Alpine Academy, Dunne is positioned to be closer to a seat in F1 than ever before. But he will also be measured against fellow Alpine juniors Gabriele Minì, the feature race winner, and Kush Maini, the polesitter. To maintain his standing within the programme, he must establish himself as the leading Alpine-affiliated driver. Following Minì’s victory in Miami, the Irishman now faces a 22-point deficit to the Italian. It’s not an insurmountable gap, but Dunne can only close it if he makes a concerted effort to sharpen his racecraft, cut out the mistakes, and race hard while maintaining control across full race weekends in the future.

3. Câmara continues ultra-consistent start

Rafael Câmara is building a championship case through consistency. He leaves Miami with his second feature race podium in as many rounds, and for much of Sunday’s race, he demonstrated seasoned race management, emerging ahead of polesitter Kush Maini during the pit stop cycle under the safety car and successfully navigating multiple restarts under pressure from Dino Beganovic.

In the final stages, Câmara was forced into defence in a three-way battle with Beganovic and Gabriele Minì. Having exhausted his tyre life while maintaining the lead, he was unable to hold off his rivals, ultimately crossing the line third but still securing another haul of high-value points.

A similar pattern played out in Melbourne, where Câmara showed strong pace but ran out of laps in his pursuit of Nikola Tsolov, ultimately securing a spot on the second step of the podium in his first F2 feature race.

Though he is only two rounds into his rookie F2 campaign, Câmara has seamlessly transitioned to F2 from his title-winning F3 season with Trident in 2025. At Invicta Racing, a team coming off consecutive drivers’ and teams’ championships in 2024 and 2025, he is operating within a framework optimised for title contention.

His approach mirrors the blueprint of 2025 champion Leonardo Fornaroli in prioritising qualifying performance and race management over high-risk manoeuvres. The parallels are distinct as well. Like Fornaroli, Câmara is a Trident-bred F3 champion who has utilised Invicta’s machinery to avoid the volatility of the midfield and maintain a focus on the championship’s bigger picture.

4. Beganovic takes big step towards title hopes

In Miami, Dino Beganovic secured a hard-fought second-place finish in the feature race. Starting 11th on the grid, the Swede carved his way through the field in tricky conditions to claim his first podium of the 2026 season. After his difficult opening round in Melbourne, where a pole position was negated by a sluggish start and a subsequent mechanical retirement, Beganovic’s performance in Florida provided a necessary correction to his championship trajectory.

Beganovic’s ambitions are lofty, with the goal to mount a challenge for the 2026 F2 title. Consistency, however, has not always been a hallmark of the Ferrari junior’s time in the series. His 2025 campaign was a tale of two halves; he endured a difficult opening seven rounds with just four points-scoring finishes before a resurgence from Silverstone onwards established him as a regular podium contender. That late-season form carried him back to a more respectable seventh in the final standings.

The Miami feature race showcased a continuation of that late-2025 pace. His drive was composed aside from a late-race error on the penultimate lap that cost him the victory, but Beganovic’s racecraft and decision-making are qualities that will be essential for a title push.

Beganovic now sits seventh in the drivers’ standings with 21 points. While he remains adrift of the current title leaders, the momentum shift in Miami suggests that he has the pace to close the gap. If the DAMS driver can reconcile his evident race pace with consistent execution over full weekends, he could yet emerge as a dark horse in the championship fight.

5. Tsolov takes half of F2’s wins in 2026

Nikola Tsolov utilised the sprint race in Miami to consolidate his position at the top of the F2 standings following the end of round two. While he was not a factor in Sunday’s feature race, the Bulgarian secured his second win of the season in the sprint race. Starting from reverse-grid pole, he controlled much of the race, and even when he briefly lost the lead to Laurens van Hoepen on the final lap, he reclaimed the position at Turn 17 before holding off both Van Hoepen and Alex Dunne in a drag race to the line to win by a margin of just 0.170 seconds.

Unfortunately for the Red Bull junior, that would be the extent of his points haul for the weekend. Tsolov’s feature race ended on the opening lap after contact with Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, who was later handed a 10-second time penalty for causing the accident.

Even so, Tsolov leaves Miami having done all he reasonably could in the races. Combined with his feature race victory in Melbourne, where he held off Câmara for his maiden F2 win, he has shown an uncanny ability to adapt quickly to the demands of the series. Tsolov’s form in 2026 is a continuation of the momentum established during his two-round stint in late 2025, when he qualified seventh on debut in Qatar and followed it up with a podium in the Abu Dhabi sprint race. 

Now leading the championship by a single point over Minì and Câmara, the Bulgarian has a clear priority: qualifying performance. He was only 10th on Friday in Miami, while in Melbourne, he qualified fifth, one position behind teammate Noel León. By securing a higher grid slot for the feature race, Tsolov can stay out of the midfield pack that compromised his Miami feature race and continue converting opportunities into consistent points for the title fight – one in which he is shaping up to be a protagonist.

Results and standings after round 2 at the Miami International Autodrome

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Kush Maini, 1:39.888	Rafael Câmara, +0.033s	Martinius Stenshorne, +0.050s
Sprint race (23 laps)	Nikola Tsolov, 39:26.273	Laurens van Hoepen, +0.170s	Alex Dunne, +1.281s
Feature race (25 laps)	Gabriele Minì, 56:22.029	Dino Beganovic, +0.980s	Rafael Câmara, +2.040s

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Nikola Tsolov, 35	Campos Racing, 56
P2	Gabriele Minì, 34	Invicta Racing, 50
P3	Rafael Câmara, 34	MP Motorsport, 46
P4	Laurens van Hoepen, 26	Hitech, 32
P5	Ritomo Miyata, 22	Trident, 26
P6	Noel León, 21	ART Grand Prix, 25
P7	Dino Beganovic, 21	DAMS, 22
P8	Joshua Dürksen, 16	Rodin Motorsport, 16
P9	Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, 13	Prema Racing, 10
P10	Alex Dunne, 12	Van Amersfoort Racing, 5

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency