Formula 2 held its fifth round of the 2026 season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya over the weekend. Kush Maini won the sprint race before Rafael Câmara converted his pole into the feature race win. Feeder Series analyses five things we learned from the weekend’s action.

By Cliona Sheerin

The action from Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya saw two new additions to the race winners list for the season, taking the tally up to seven after five rounds of racing. 

Laurens van Hoepen led the way after the sole Friday practice session before Câmara took his third pole position of the season in qualifying. On Saturday, Maini made his return to the top step of the podium for the first time since last year’s Monaco sprint race. Câmara then converted pole into his first F2 race win in dominant fashion in the feature race.

• Pre-weekend media roundtable: How crucial is the support top F2 teams offer?
• Qualifying report and quotes: Câmara takes back-to-back poles in Barcelona to continue stunning F2 qualifying form
• Sprint race report and quotes: Barcelona F2 sprint winner Maini: I’ve fallen in love with motorsport again
• Feature race report and quotes: Câmara plays strategy blinder to take first F2 win in Barcelona feature

1. Câmara bounces back

What a difference a week makes for Rafael Câmara. After the disappointment of retiring while fighting for the feature race win in Monaco, the Brazilian did not have long to wait to reign victorious. 

The Barcelona feature race was not without its challenges either, however. A slow getaway off the line meant Câmara had to settle for second during the first stint. But once Alex Dunne made way to switch to the hard tyres, Câmara had a clear Catalan circuit in front of him. Having saved his tyres during the safety car and while in the wheeltracks of Dunne, the Invicta driver was able to extend the tyre life of his softs all the way to lap 22, when he was serviced by his mechanics. It wasn’t the quickest of stops, however, and Câmara came back out on track with a seven-second gap between him and net leader Dunne. 

But no matter for the reigning F3 champion. On his fresher hard tyres, he carved his way through to the front easily, passing his competitors as though they weren’t even there. He made light work of both Gabriele Minì and Dunne on the main straight, neither of whom had any defence against the soon-to-be race winner.

One week after Câmara ended the Monaco feature race in the runoff area at Sainte-Dévote, nothing could prevent him from taking victory with a dominant winning margin of more than 12 seconds. 

The win comes at a crucial time for Câmara. His Monaco result caused him to drop to seventh in the championship standings. Now, he is well within contention, third overall and only 17 points off leader Gabriele Minì after his first double points score of the season. 

2. Minì maintains championship lead 

It was a relatively quiet weekend for Gabriele Minì by his standards, but two podiums and an extension of his championship lead is nothing to be scoffed at. His record of six podiums in seven races shows a level of consistency that few others have managed so far this season.

A good start to the sprint race launched the Italian up the order, and by lap six he had reached the podium places from seventh on the grid. He then came face to face with his nearest rival Nikola Tsolov, the two battling on track for the first time this year. The MP Motorsport driver emerged victorious and eventually crossed the line ahead of the Bulgarian on the second step of the podium. If mind games were at play, Minì had struck another blow to his closest championship rival. 

The two drivers picked up where they left off in the feature race. This time, Tsolov came out on top on the road with a move on the exit of Turn 10 as Minì struggled for grip on older hard tyres. But Tsolov was adjudged to have completed the pass off the track, and his post-race five-second time penalty was enough to demote him off the podium, with Minì taking the spot instead. 

All that means that Minì stays at the top of the drivers’ standings, with 86 points to his name.

3. Tsolov adds consistency to championship challenge

Prior to round five in Barcelona, it had been a season of win or bust for Campos Racing’s Nikola Tsolov. His three race victories were his only points finishes going into this weekend. 

That all changed this weekend, however, as Tsolov ended the weekend with two top-four finishes to his name. The sprint race brought him his first non-victory podium of the season. Despite losing out late on to championship rival Minì in the battle for second, Tsolov came home with a third-place finish and the corresponding six championship points to add to his tally. He followed that up with another podium on the road in the feature, utilising the alternate strategy to progress from his starting position of fifth to second place. 

However, the five-second time penalty Tsolov received post-race for gaining an advantage off track dropped him to fourth in the final classification. Having briefly held the championship lead during and immediately after the race, Tsolov had to watch as the pendulum swung back in the Italian’s favour. 

Nevertheless, an 18-point haul in Barcelona means he keeps in touch with Minì out front, just six points adrift of the Italian. Furthermore, he helped Campos retain their lead in the teams’ standings with a total of 134 points.

4. Dunne gets third second place in as many feature races

Another driver attempting to emulate Minì’s levels of consistency this season is Alex Dunne. The Rodin Motorsport driver now has three second-place finishes on the bounce in feature races following another strong weekend in Barcelona.

Dunne’s feature race struggles early this season have been well documented – the crash with teammate Martinius Stenshorne while fighting for the win in Melbourne, the retirement after a costly mistake in Miami. As one of the favorites for the title, Dunne did not enjoy the best of beginnings to his sophomore F2 season.

Since then, however, Dunne has finished second in each of the three feature races. First it was the 1-2 behind his teammate in Montréal. Then came the Monaco podium after an impressive qualifying display from both Rodin drivers. Finally there was the strategy-heavy feature race in Barcelona that yielded him his fifth podium of the season overall. 

While that elusive first win of the season still evades the Irishman, he has ironed out the mistakes of the earlier rounds. He now sits fourth in the standings, 19 points off leader Minì, and has found a streak of form he will be hoping to carry forward into the remaining rounds of the season.

5. Herta has the pace to fight at the front

The final word goes to Colton Herta, who will be cursing what might have been in the sprint race. 

The American driver has shown glimpses of what he has to offer in some of the feature races so far this season, making his way up the order to finish in the lower reaches of the points. But this weekend promised more for the American rookie.

After qualifying in the top 10 for the first time this year, Herta finally had the opportunity to show what he was made of at the front of the field. In the sprint race, Herta lost two places on the opening lap and fell to fifth, but he regained them in the race’s second half with well-executed tyre management. Overtakes on the Campos Racing pair of Noel León and Nikola Tsolov meant he sat in third position heading onto the final tour.

But as he was catching Gabriele Minì ahead for second, he made a costly error, locking up into Turn 5 and running off into the gravel. All of Herta’s hard work was undone, and he slid back down to fifth. On paper, it was a decent result – his best in F2 so far, in fact. But that didn’t change the fact that he threw away the chance of taking his first podium in the championship, a fact he lamented as he repeated ‘unacceptable’ on the radio. 

An unremarkable feature race rounded off a weekend that promised so much but delivered so little for Herta. Nevertheless, he managed to show his pace close to the front of the field for the first time this season, setting the foundation for podium finishes to materialise in the future. 

Results and standings after round 5 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Rafael Câmara, 1:24.810	Joshua Dürksen, +0.135s	Alex Dunne, +0.225s
Sprint race (26 laps)	Kush Maini, 39:55.725	Gabriele Minì, +7.269s	Nikola Tsolov, +12.164s
Feature race (37 laps)	Rafael Câmara, 58:35.839	Alex Dunne, +12.406s	Gabriele Minì, +13.468s

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Gabriele Minì, 86	Campos Racing, 134
P2	Nikola Tsolov, 80	Rodin Motorsport, 115
P3	Rafael Câmara, 69	MP Motorsport, 98
P4	Alex Dunne, 67	Invicta Racing, 90
P5	Noel León, 54	DAMS, 65
P6	Dino Beganovic, 53	ART Grand Prix, 54
P7	Martinius Stenshorne, 48	Trident, 50
P8	Laurens van Hoepen, 43	Hitech, 50
P9	Kush Maini, 41	Prema Racing, 30
P10	Ritomo Miyata, 30	AIX Racing, 20

Read our takeaways from the previous round here.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency