Campos Racing’s Noel León produced his maiden Formula 2 pole position in a sweltering Spielberg qualifying session, executing a perfectly judged gamble to beat Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne and teammate Nikola Tsolov by just under two tenths. After the session, León and Dunne spoke to Feeder Series about how qualifying unfolded.

By August Bamford 

León initially set the pace on his opening run before being displaced by Invicta Racing’s Rafael Câmara midway through the session. Undeterred, the Mexican responded with a stunning 1:15.544 on his second attempt, setting the best times in every sector and finding more than half a second overall Câmara’s benchmark. Through a frenetic set of runs, the time ultimately proved untouchable.

León’s feat was made all the more impressive by the manner in which it was achieved. While every other driver in the field pitted for supersofts mid-session and waited until the final flying laps, the Campos driver made a brief tyre change during the first runs and stayed out from there. He set his monstrous lap in free air and watched from the pit lane comfortably as one by one, his rivals fell short of his benchmark. By the time the chequered flag fell, León could finally celebrate his maiden F2 pole position.

The result only continues what has been an outstanding rookie campaign that has put him fifth in the standings so far. León claimed his maiden F2 victory in a chaotic, safety car–disrupted sprint race in Montréal before backing it up a week later in Monaco, where he led from lights to flag to secure back-to-back Saturday victories. Now, for the first time, he has the opportunity to convert pole position into a feature race triumph.

“My team call me ‘Mr Saturday’,” León jokingly told Feeder Series in the post-qualifying press conference. “I’d always been there on Saturday and not on Sunday. But this is finally a good quali. We have pole position for the feature race and I will try to maximise that. Our pace is quite strong. We’ve come from a few races now where I was a bit off in the race pace. We know why, we know the issue and we’ve seen that the car is working very well, so we’ll try to do whatever needs to be done.”

Friday afternoon’s session saw track temperatures climbing even higher than they had during practice, and every driver was eager to maximise grip from the opening minutes of the 30-minute session. DAMS’ Roman Bilinski posted the first representative benchmark five minutes into the session before the circuit rapidly evolved, only for Dino Beganovic, fresh off of his FP1 outing with Ferrari, to ascend to the summit himself.

As the rubber continued to go down, lap times tumbled with almost every crossing of the line. Alex Dunne looked to have laid down a commanding benchmark despite locking up into Turn 3, but the Campos pairing quickly struck back, with Tsolov briefly leading before León edged his teammate with 23:23 remaining to make it a Campos 1-2.

Championship contender Rafael Câmara appeared capable of going fastest on his opening attempt, only for traffic from the Van Amersfoort Racing car of Nico Varrone to force him to abandon the lap, leaving the Invicta driver down in 21st. But Câmara soon recovered to jump to the top with a 1:16.052 with 19:48 remaining, while championship leader Gabriele Minì slotted into third.

Elsewhere in the field, Martinius Stenshorne lost valuable time after his car got unsettled over the kerbs, and Hitech’s Colton Herta ran wide at the penultimate corner, denying himself an improvement as the field headed for the pits around the halfway mark.

León went on to set a commanding target of 1:15.544 for the field to chase, and 10 minutes remained as the rest of the grid embarked on their final qualifying runs. Goethe was the first to threaten before a snap through the final corner cost him time. Dunne and Tsolov came closest, finishing 0.129s and 0.186s back respectively, while Câmara once again lost time in the final sector and could only manage fifth. With a minute still left on the clock, León was already celebrating in the car as driver after driver fell short.

The result means that Dunne will join León on the front row of the grid come Sunday, while Tsolov completes a superb afternoon for Campos in third. Championship leader Minì qualified fourth ahead of Câmara, while Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, practice pacesetter Oliver Goethe, Rafael Villagómez, John Bennett and Sebastián Montoya round out the top 10. The Colombian will occupy reverse-grid pole for Saturday’s sprint race.

“There was a little bit where I could’ve extracted more, here and there,” Dunne said. “I also imagine that if Noel looks at the data, compared to himself, compared to Nikola, that he will probably find half a tenth or a tenth. That’s how it is. No matter how good you think your lap is, you can always find a little bit more. In the end, we were just over a tenth away, which is not really a whole lot. I was pretty happy with my lap. I felt we maximised what we could do today.”

Outside of the top 10, the session ended with disappointing results for the DAMS duo of Roman Bilinski and Dino Beganovic, both of whom had briefly occupied the top spot as the session unfolded before falling to 13th and 14th respectively when it mattered most. Rodin’s Stenshorne also endured a difficult qualifying and never quite pieced together a clean lap after several costly moments on the edge of the track compromised his momentum. The 2025 F3 feature race winner at the circuit will start both races 21st out of 22 drivers.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency