The Red Bull Ring played host to the sixth round of the 2026 Formula 2 season. Saturday’s sprint saw a first-time winner in John Bennett, while Nikola Tsolov took his fourth win of the season in the feature race. Feeder Series analyses four things we learned from the weekend’s racing.

By Cliona Sheerin

Oliver Goethe got off to the fastest start of the weekend with the quickest time in Friday’s free practice session, before Noel León qualified on pole for the first time. John Bennett’s last-lap lunge on Sebastián Montoya in the sprint race granted him his first victory in the championship, while Nikola Tsolov took yet another win in the feature race.

• Pre-weekend roundtable: How F2 drivers are preparing for Austria amid record-breaking European heatwave
• Qualifying report and quotes: León’s bold gamble delivers maiden F2 pole in Spielberg
• Sprint race report and quotes: Patience pays off for Bennett with last-lap pass for first F2 win in Spielberg 
• Feature race report and quotes: Tsolov seals fourth win of 2026 in Spielberg F2 feature race

1. No stopping Tsolov in Spielberg

Even a first-lap incident in the sprint race couldn’t prevent Nikola Tsolov from extending his run of points-scoring finishes, which now tallies six in succession.

After being tagged in an opening-lap incident at Turn 3, the Campos driver spent the majority of the race making his way back up the order, eventually finishing where he started in eighth. That experience yielded plenty of data that he and his team could take into Sunday’s feature race.

“I had to adapt a lot [yesterday],” Tsolov told Feeder Series after the feature race. “Obviously today made it easier, anticipating what we felt yesterday. Definitely with 10 degrees less of temp, it made our life easier, so it was easier in a way, but I also had to manage with the DRS because, again, it was very powerful.”

Tsolov used the DRS to his advantage in his feature race win, sitting in the wheeltracks of Alex Dunne to conserve his tyres and ensure he had enough grip for the latter stages of the race. Once he was around the Rodin on lap 25, Tsolov never looked back, utilising the grip he had in reserve to finish the race with a 3.993-second gap over his closest championship rival in Gabriele Minì. 

What looked to be a weekend of damage limitation on lap one of the sprint race materialised into a points swing in Tsolov’s favour. The gap between the top two in the championship has closed once more to just two points compared to the six-point-lead Minì held heading to the Red Bull Ring. 

2. Mr Saturday no more for León

In the other Campos car, Noel León made a breakthrough this weekend with his first F2 pole position. Although he was unable to convert pole into a feature race podium, the achievement is still an important milestone for the Mexican in his rookie season.

León joked after qualifying that he could now shed the ‘Mr Saturday’ label his Campos team playfully bestowed upon him. So far this season, all of León’s three podiums have come in the Saturday sprints, including his two victories in Montréal and Monaco.

Unfortunately for León, qualifying was his best session of the weekend. An unremarkable sprint race saw him finish where he started in 10th, and his struggles continued in the feature race. After being overtaken by his teammate on the opening lap, León then lost out in the pit stop sequence. As the first to make the trip to the pits, he was overcut by several of his competitors and failed to keep the pace with the frontrunners. He eventually finished in seventh, behind two of the alternate-strategy runners. 

Nevertheless, León ended the weekend with eight points to maintain fifth place in the standings and help his Campos team extend their lead in the teams’ championship. Perhaps more importantly, the outright pace advantage he displayed in qualifying will serve as an important confidence booster as he heads to Silverstone, where he took his best results of the F3 season in both 2024 and 2025.

3. Rodin lose ground in teams’ battle

On the other side of the coin, Rodin Motorsport lost out to their rivals in the teams’ championship. While Alex Dunne’s record of achieving a podium in all rounds of the championship so far came to an end with his finishes of fourth and sixth respectively, his teammate Martinius Stenshorne had a considerably more difficult weekend, scoring zero points for the second round in succession.

“The weekend in general wasn’t the best. It wasn’t what we hoped for,” Stenshorne told Feeder Series after the feature race. “Having some issues in qualifying put us on the back foot for the races, starting in the back with the brake issues we had in quali. I think we still have to work a bit. Obviously the first three, four rounds were really good and then Barcelona and this one were not the best, so we have to keep working and try to come back stronger for next week.”

Stenshorne did progress from a starting position of 21st to sixth across the line in the feature race, but a post-race penalty undid all of his good work. Stenshorne was adjudged to have completed his mandatory stop under virtual safety car conditions, which had come into effect just as he entered pit lane. The accompanying stop-go penalty for this infringement was converted into a 30-second time penalty added to his race time, sending him to the back of the finishing order. 

These results mean Rodin slip back to third in the teams’ standings, 40 points off leaders Campos and eight behind MP Motorsport. The Farnham-based squad now head into their home round with momentum to regain and a point to prove.

4. Goethe finally finds his form

After 47 starts, Oliver Goethe is an F2 podium finisher. His third place in the Austrian feature race is just his second points score of the year following a difficult opening third of his season.

The German driver got off to a great start to the weekend, setting the pace in Friday’s practice session. He then had his best qualifying of 2026 so far, coming away with a seventh-place grid spot from which to start the feature race.

His sprint race was over almost as quickly as it began, however, as he was forced to retire after being caught up in the opening-lap melee. That meant he was effectively going into the feature race blind, but a decision to opt for the alternate strategy proved key to achieving the podium that had evaded him throughout his F2 career so far.

Goethe, now in his second full season of F2, had already racked up a field-high five retirements before taking third place in his 12th race of the year. And while good results have been few and far between for him, his teammate Gabriele Minì can’t seem to stop scoring points, with only one non-score to his name. In fact, 108 points of MP Motorsport’s tally of 136 for the season come from the Italian. 

The podium could kick-start Goethe’s season in earnest. It has already aided MP in moving up the order and into second place in the teams’ championship, and they will need all the help they can get from both of their drivers to have any chance of mounting a challenge to Campos, who sit 32 points out front. 

Additional reporting by August Bamford

Results and standings after round 6 at Spielberg

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Noel León, 1:15.544	Alex Dunne, +0.129s	Nikola Tsolov, +0.186s
Sprint race (28 laps)	John Bennett, 39:23.246	Sebastián Montoya, +1.496s	Rafael Villagómez, +1.634s
Feature race (40 laps)	Nikola Tsolov, 56:10.538	Gabriele Minì, +3.993s	Oliver Goethe, +12.198s

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Gabriele Minì, 108	Campos Racing, 168
P2	Nikola Tsolov, 106	MP Motorsport, 136
P3	Rafael Câmara, 82	Rodin Motorsport, 128
P4	Alex Dunne, 80	Invicta Racing, 105
P5	Noel León, 62	DAMS, 69
P6	Dino Beganovic, 53	ART Grand Prix, 66
P7	Martinius Stenshorne, 48	Trident, 64
P8	Laurens van Hoepen, 47	Hitech, 50
P9	Kush Maini, 43	Prema Racing, 38
P10	Ritomo Miyata, 30	Van Amersfoort Racing, 20

Read our takeaways from the previous round here.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency