Martinius Stenshorne took his first Formula 2 win and first feature race points of the season at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The Norwegian withstood changeable conditions and several incidents for his rivals to come out on top, while teammate Alex Dunne in second gave Rodin Motorsport a double podium as MP Motorsport’s Gabriele Minì finished third. Feeder Series spoke to the podium finishers post-race about the contest.

By Cliona Sheerin

Stenshorne started where he finished Saturday’s sprint race, lining up in third place after post-qualifying penalties for Dunne and Rafael Câmara. It was a race of safety cars as the damp conditions and low track temperatures presented a whole new challenge for the drivers to contend with. 

Stenshorne, however, managed to avoid all the chaos around him. He impressively made his way past several drivers on both similar and different strategies to get to the front of the field. He went on to control the restarts, deal with patches of drizzle and, most importantly, keep his car out of trouble to cross the line first.

“It was not easy this time because it was very cold, a bit wet as well, so it was difficult to warm the tyres,” Stenshorne told Feeder Series in the post-race press conference. “Opposite to Miami, where it was very warm and difficult to keep the tyres cool. This time, it was a bit difficult to keep them warm. Throughout the race, we didn’t deg too much. I took care of my tyres well in the beginning, so we had pace throughout the race and it wasn’t much of an issue.”

“I’ve been very confident where the car is so far this year, to be honest,” he added. “Yesterday I did struggle a bit but felt better today, and I think even in the wet in Miami, we were quite competitive before our issues as well. Pace is looking positive in all conditions, so hopefully it stays that way.”

Polesitter Laurens van Hoepen didn’t have the best of getaways when the lights went out, and Nikola Tsolov capitalised on his opportunity to lead into the first corner with a sweeping move around the outside. That lead was short-lived, however, as Van Hoepen stuck his Trident up the inside heading into Turn 3 to regain the position. The top four remained as they were on the grid, rounded out by Stenshorne and Bennett.

Behind the leading quartet came Rafael Villagómez, who made up three places from where he started using the outside line heading into the first corner. He was followed by Dunne in sixth and Minì in seventh, the Italian also making up three positions. Câmara was the biggest loser on the race start, dropping from fifth to eighth. Saturday’s sprint winner Noel León sat in ninth, while Joshua Dürksen rounded out the top 10 after the opening lap.

Just behind them, contact at the chicane at Turns 6 and 7 between Roman Bilinski and Emerson Fittipaldi Jr resulted in damage to the AIX Racing car’s front wing. 

On lap two, Villagómez continued his upward trajectory with another move, this time down the back straight on Bennett. Câmara tried to do the same on the following lap on Minì but took to the run-off area at the final corners and had to give back the position. He did succeed at the next corner, however, with a lunge into Turn 1.

Meanwhile, Van Hoepen and Tsolov had pulled out a two-second gap over Stenshorne in third. On lap four, Tsolov was close enough to start lining up a move. Van Hoepen took a defensive line into the final chicane, but as he did so, he hit the wet kerb and slid into the Wall of Champions. With that tiny error, the polesitter and race leader crashed out of the race. 

Van Hoepen’s crash brought out the first safety car of the race on lap five, and drivers were led through the pit lane so that the stricken Trident could be recovered. It was too early, however, for anyone who had started on the supersoft tyres – the entire field bar Bilinski, Kush Maini and Mari Boya – to make their mandatory pit stop. No one changed tyres until Fittipaldi made the switch onto the harder compound just as the cars were coming up to the restart.

Tsolov led the field as they went back to green on lap eight. No one made any moves on the restart, and they didn’t get very far before the yellow flags were back out again, this time because Fittipaldi found the wall on the way out of the pits on cold tyres. 

The safety car was redeployed on lap nine, and the majority of the supersoft runners now took the opportunity to switch over to the soft tyres. The scenes on pit lane were chaotic, and in the midst of it all, Bennett made contact with Villagómez as he pulled out of his box. The damage to Bennett’s car was too great for him to continue, and after achieving their best qualifying results in two years on Friday, Trident suffered a double non-finish in Sunday’s feature race. 

Dunne and Dürksen also lost out in the pit cycle as their teams double-stacked their cars. They dropped down to 13th and 18th respectively in the overall order. 

Soft-shod Bilinski, Maini and Boya were now at the head of the train, with Colton Herta sitting between them in second place, waiting for the weather to turn more severe to benefit from a free pit stop. Tsolov won the race off pit lane ahead of Stenshorne, Villagómez, Minì, Câmara and Dino Beganovic. 

Bilinski got the jump on Herta on the restart heading into lap 13. Tsolov made a dive down the inside of Turn 1 on Boya, but the two went wide out of Turn 2 and Stenshorne picked up the pieces, sweeping around the both of them and into fourth. Stenshorne was now the net leader of the race as the highest-placed driver to have already made his mandatory pit stop. Tsolov got around Boya before following Stenshorne through on Maini.

But Maini and Tsolov weren’t done there. On lap 14, the Alpine Academy driver rear-ended the Red Bull junior at Turn 13 and sent him around. Tsolov did get going again but had dropped towards the back of the pack. 

Three laps later there was more contact, this time between Câmara and Villagómez at Turn 2, which resulted in front-left suspension damage for the Mexican that brought his race to an early end. That brought out the virtual safety car for a period on lap 18, but it ended in time for Beganovic to get ahead of Câmara through the final chicane.

Race leader Bilinski was the next to hit trouble, going straight on at the hairpin as rain showers approached. Stenshorne took over the lead before Bilinski tumbled further down the order behind Herta and Beganovic.

Câmara also wanted a piece of the action and tried to make a move up the inside of Bilinski at Turn 2 on lap 23, but there wasn’t enough room and the Brazilian went spinning after making contact with Bilinski’s sidepod. That dropped him to 16th before he came into the pits to retire from the race. Câmara was later awarded a five-second time penalty for the earlier contact with Villagómez, however, and he went back out to serve it so as not to have it hanging over him heading into Monaco, where overtaking is notoriously difficult.

A lap later, there was concern for second-placed Beganovic as smoke appeared to be emanating from the rear of his car. He held on for three more laps before coming to a halt on the run towards Turn 3 – a stoppage that brought out yet another safety car. Bilinski pitted for the supersoft tyre during this time.

At this point, Stenshorne led teammate Dunne – who had gotten ahead of his fellow Alpine Academy driver Minì with a move at the hairpin on lap 25 – from Minì, Maini, Dürksen and the recovering Tsolov.

Dunne came over the radio calling for a clean and early restart, and Stenshorne delivered just that. He led the field to green on lap 34 and escaped his teammate’s DRS range within a few corners. Maini had held out for more rain for as long as he could but eventually pitted at the end of the lap.

With all the prior stoppages, the race also went to time on the 34th lap of a scheduled 39, but there wasn’t much more racing. Oliver Goethe and Miyata hit the right-side wall coming on to the back straight on that lap, ending both their own races and the green-flag action as a whole. The final safety car intervention lasted until the chequered flag on lap 37, which Stenshorne took first for his maiden victory in the championship. 

More than that, Rodin Motorsport finally took a 1-2 on a Sunday – their first in a feature race since the 2018 season opener – after enduring double retirements in the two prior feature races. Just as he did in the sprint, Dunne crossed the line in second place, but he was able to keep the podium this time around. 

“It was very difficult to get the tyres up to [temperature],” Dunne said after the feature race. “I struggled a little bit on the first couple of laps, but I think once they heated up, everything felt pretty good for me. And then after the issue in the pit lane where I lost a lot of time having to double-stack, I wasn’t really doing any management. I was just flat out, trying to gain as many positions as I could and trying to get to the front as quick as possible.

“Because it was so cold, you were allowed to push, you were able to push quite hard, and I think I didn’t really get much of a penalty for pushing so hard. I think if I did that yesterday in the sprint race, we probably would have struggled a little bit more. Not a whole lot of management was needed, but I think a lot of that is thanks to the cooler temps.”

Minì earned his second podium of the weekend and extended his championship lead to 21 points over Câmara. He too spoke post-race about the distinct tyre management challenges in the cooler conditions.

“It was very tricky at the beginning, especially temperature-wise,” Minì told Feeder Series. “Everyone was very low because I ended up gaining three or four positions, so I guess the others were in even worse condition than me. Towards the middle of the race, to be honest, for me the tyre deg did not feel too bad; we were just missing a bit of pace, but we were not degrading the tyres, while we can see some other drivers, they were really quick at the beginning and a bit slower at the end.

“It always depends on the compromise that you have on the car. It was the same thing for me – very quick at the beginning, but after a few laps, I already started degrading my tyres.”

Tsolov, meanwhile, recovered to fourth after his earlier spin but received a 10-second post-race penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. That gave Prema Racing’s Sebastián Montoya a season-best finish of fourth ahead of Cian Shields, who took his first ever F2 points in fifth.

Nico Varrone was sixth followed by Colton Herta, who continued his points-scoring streak in the feature races by finishing seventh. 

Boya, Maini and Dürksen were the final points finishers. The Paraguayan ended up 10th after earning a 10-second penalty for a collision with Miyata on lap 26. Behind him were Tsolov, León and Bilinski, all of whom received time penalties for various offences. Câmara was classified three laps down, but he remains second in the standings, one point ahead of both Tsolov and Stenshorne and three points ahead of León and Van Hoepen.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency