Noel León took his second Formula 2 sprint race victory in a row with a win in Monaco on Saturday. The Campos driver won a strategy-dominated race, finishing ahead of DAMS driver Roman Bilinski and MP Motorsport’s Gabriele Minì. Feeder Series got the views of the top three drivers post-race.

By Cliona Sheerin

León withstood pressure from behind and the proximity of the Monaco walls to convert pole position into a lights-to-flag victory in the Principality. After getting a clean start, the Mexican driver focused on trying not to take too many risks on the unforgiving street circuit, knowing there was little chance he would be overtaken.

“For me, the main thing was to get a good start,” León said in the post-race press conference. “I know Roman was going to attack me at the beginning, so [for the] first two laps it was important to create a gap and build the temperature to the tyres nicely because it was very warm, so degradation was a bit [higher]. After that, I didn’t want to risk it for a fastest lap and just stayed on pace and the whole race went like that. [The] car felt pretty good. At the end I was a bit worried about lapped cars because I started to catch them, but luckily everybody got out of the way.”

Polesitter León led the field into Turn 1, while Bilinski behind suffered a lock-up on the run down to Sainte Dévote, almost making contact with the Mexican driver as he did so. Nevertheless, he maintained second place, with the rest of the top six also remaining where they started. The biggest loser in terms of positions lost on the start was Alex Dunne, who started seventh. The Irishman was squeezed into the inside wall on the front straight and eventually cut the first turn before rejoining the pack in ninth. 

Later on in the lap, Oliver Goethe made contact with Ritomo Miyata at the Lower Mirabeau as he tried to make a move for 11th place. The damage resulted in a trip to the pits for Goethe before he retired from the race on lap 22. 

After the opening exchanges, León led a front quintet consisting of himself, Bilinski, Minì, Dürksen and Beganovic, who created a gap of more than six seconds to sixth-placed Martinius Stenshorne by the end of lap eight. Beganovic, at the rear of this group, took the opportunity to try for the fastest lap of the race, alternating between push and cool laps to attempt to earn that extra point without any threat of being overtaken. Bilinski followed suit a few laps later, dropping out of DRS range to León on lap 11 to go for a qualifying-style lap. 

Many other drivers adopted a conservative tyre management strategy, and by the halfway point of the race, the field was spread quite wide. The stalemate out front therefore continued, while Stenshorne, Maini, Câmara and Dunne ran races of their own in sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth. Then came Tsolov in 10th, heading up a DRS train that included the majority of the remainder of the field. Within that group, Mari Boya and Laurens van Hoepen, who had made up six places on lap one after cutting Sainte Dévote, made contact on the exit of La Rascasse while fighting for 15th place on lap 15.

A few laps later, the front group itself split into two duos of León and Bilinski, and Dürksen and Beganovic, with championship leader Minì isolated between them in third. Even with this change and Dürksen losing DRS, none of the four chasing León seemed likely to make a pass on the driver in front.

Further back, on lap 22, Miyata made a move on Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak for 11th on the exit of the Nouvelle Chicane, which prompted Tsolov up the road to pick up the pace and set a new fastest lap of the race of his own. A technical issue for Inthraphuvasak on lap 25 then forced him to pit and retire from the race.

As lap 27 began, the frontrunners had to contend with overtaking and lapping drivers in the lower echelons of the field. This brought the fight for the podium places back together once more with Bilinski, Minì, Dürksen and Beganovic running nose to tail and within DRS range of one another again, but no one was able to make a move before the chequered flag flew.

León crossed the line with a healthy 3.4-second gap back to Bilinski, while the rest of the top five were separated by just 1.5 seconds. Rookie driver Bilinski achieved the best result of his F2 career with second, having only managed two eighth-place finishes in the sprint races in Melbourne and Montréal.   

“It’s tricky because I didn’t really manage so much at the start,” Bilinski told Feeder Series post-race. “I was just trying to stick to the car in front of me and keep a pace that he was keeping and trying to keep him under pressure. And then I struggled later on, so I guess that’s a lesson learnt that maybe I probably should manage a little bit better. But it’s good to know that for tomorrow, and the cars that did manage a bit better. Some cars cooled down and then they’d push the next lap, which I saw Gabri was doing a few times, and then you have a lot of pace also for the fastest lap. I think it’s a bit of that.”

Minì claimed his fourth podium on the bounce in third, thereby putting his championship lead at 20 points over León, who now sits second in the standings. All did not go to plan for the Italian, however, as his MP Motorsport team’s failure to nominate the front brakes resulted in their being hit with a fine of €7,000 and the removal of two brake discs from the car’s total allocation for the season.   

“For me, it was a bit about covering from Joshua behind. He was pushing quite hard on the first laps. He was really close,” Minì said after the sprint race. “So it was important to have a gap at least on the bigger braking points. And then as I think many drivers behind tried to, I tried to do some cool downs and just take some space and push for quicker laps just to see how everything is. But surprisingly there was quite a lot of degradation, so I think it will be a big factor for tomorrow. If somebody pits earlier or later, it will make a difference. So we just have to analyse now overnight everything and see what we can do different and better for tomorrow.”

Dürksen and Beganovic crossed the line in fourth and fifth close behind Minì, while Stenshorne also finished where he started in sixth. Maini was seventh ahead of tomorrow’s polesitter Câmara, who claimed the final point in eighth. Next came Dunne in ninth, with Tsolov rounding out the top 10 and coming away with a point for the fastest lap of the race.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency