ART Grand Prix’s Kush Maini took his third Formula 2 victory in imperious fashion in the sprint race in Barcelona on Saturday. He beat out points leader Gabriele Minì and the Italian’s closest championship rival Nikola Tsolov, with an impressive winning margin of 7.269 seconds. 

By Martin Lloyd

Maini’s victory was one of the most impressive in recent memory given the large margin of victory. He flew off the line from second on the grid, immediately overtaking reverse-grid polesitter Noel León, and from there never looked like losing the lead.

Maini’s career in F2, a series in which he has competed full-time since 2023, has been a story of highs and lows. While there have been strong results, such as his 2025 Monaco sprint win and the maiden win he inherited at Budapest in 2024, there have been long periods of difficult results. He has competed for a different team every season – Campos Racing in 2023, Invicta Racing in 2024 and DAMS in 2025 – before he switched to ART at the start of this season. It’s a move that Maini says has fostered a positive relationship critical to his strong recent form, which has seen him score points in five of the last six races.

“Obviously, me and ART were in a similar position,” Maini told Feeder Series at the post-race press conference. “We both knew that we could do it, but it hasn’t really clicked in the last few years. Going into this [season], we really put a lot of effort [in] on and off the track. I think I have a very good relationship with all the engineers and my mechanics.

“It’s a shame to say, but I think it’s been a very long time since I’ve enjoyed Formula 2. Probably 2023 was probably the last time I did, and I think that shows what a big difference it makes to actually enjoy what you’re doing and fall in love with the sport that I’ve loved for so long again. I think that’s the main thing that I’m going to take from this year so far.”

Maini’s imperious display is in line with much-improved displays from the Indian driver and his team since the start of the season. He had taken pole and led in Miami before being relegated by an ill-timed safety car, while he recovered from 10th on the grid for the Monaco feature race to take fourth place. Saturday’s performance was therefore the culmination of a strong start to the season for Maini, who is in his fourth year in the series and is now the series’ most experienced driver.

After his pass off the line, Maini was barely seen by the remainder of the grid for the rest of the race. Behind him, the field remained clean through Turns 1 and 2. León maintained second place after losing first to Maini, while behind him, Tsolov passed Nicolás Varrone and Colton Herta to move from fifth to third. Minì himself moved into fifth from seventh on the grid, passing the Van Amersfoort pair of Rafael Villagómez and Varrone at the start and at Turn 3 respectively.

On the second lap, Minì made a similar move at Turn 4 to pass Herta for fourth place, while Tsolov was closing on teammate León for second. The Bulgarian driver passed his Mexican teammate at Turn 1 at the start of lap three, while Minì produced a replica of Tsolov’s move on lap six to take third.

While Tsolov and Minì were making their moves, Maini was stamping his authority at the front of the race. By the start of lap seven, he already held a 4.2-second advantage over Tsolov. With 20 laps still remaining in the race, such an advantage might suggest that Maini had taken too much performance out of his tyres on a track that is famously hard on the front-left. These fears, however, proved to be unfounded. The gap briefly dropped to a low of 3.0 seconds at the start of lap 11, but Maini managed to stop the slide and began to build a much greater advantage.

While Tsolov and Minì attempted to bridge the gaps to the drivers ahead, León was fourth and focused on defending his position from Herta, who was enjoying his best race to date since his switch to the series from IndyCar over the winter. The American made a successful move on the inside of Turn 1 on lap 14, setting the stage for a dramatic late-race fight for the podium positions. 

While Maini checked out at the front, Minì was reeling in Tsolov as Hitech’s Herta was catching the pair of them. On lap 22, Minì had closed on Tsolov and made his first attempt to pass at Turn 1, which the Campos Racing driver fended off. On the following lap, Minì made another effort at Turn 1. He wrestled his car around the outside, but his right-rear tyre touched Tsolov’s front wing as the move was completed. Luckily for the MP Motorsport driver, he was able to continue without getting a puncture. Tsolov lost a front-wing endplate and appeared to lose pace but also continued. 

This battling only further incentivised Herta to catch the pair on lap 23, with the 26-year-old chasing his first F2 podium. As Tsolov seemingly nursed damage, Herta made an unconventional lunge on Tsolov at Turn 7 and took third place, putting himself in a prime position to take his first F2 podium with just three and a half laps remaining.

The Cadillac F1 test driver set about chasing Minì for second and hustled his Hitech around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in an effort to take two extra points. This hustling would be his undoing, however, when he locked up at Turn 5. He went straight on into the gravel, not only helping Minì escape but also opening the door for Tsolov and León to re-pass him. While it only cost him two points, the loss of a potential first F2 podium would have been tough to take.

Maini crossed the line at the end of the lap with a colossal margin of 7.269s – the biggest winning margin in an F2 sprint race since he won the 2024 Budapest sprint race by 9.564s over Victor Martins. He also earned an extra point for setting the fastest lap of the race, a 1:30.376 set on lap four.

Minì, Tsolov, León and Herta rounded out the top five ahead of Sunday polesitter Rafael Câmara in sixth. Dino Beganovic was seventh, with Alex Dunne in eighth, thus putting all three Alpine juniors in F2 in the points-scoring positions. Home driver Mari Boya finished 15th from 21st on the grid. For the first time since the 2025 Bahrain feature race, there were no retirements.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency