Campos Racing’s Nikola Tsolov continued his relentless record of victories in the 2026 Formula 2 season, taking his fifth in a sprint race at Silverstone with a crucial last-lap overtake over MP Motorsport’s Gabriele Minì. After the race, Tsolov, Minì and third-placed Rafael Villagómez spoke to Feeder Series about their varying championship approaches and finding consistency for future rounds.

By August Bamford 

Tsolov did half the work on the first lap, with a remarkable launch from sixth on the grid seeing him climb to third by the end of the first sector. Capitalising on a mistake from Villagómez after an early safety car restart, he gained another position to move into second, leaving nothing but clean air between himself and his chief rival Minì. 

It took multiple determined attempts to get through, as the Alpine junior defended expertly at every turn. Going into the final lap, it looked as though Tsolov’s chances had dried up, before Minì suffered an agonising lock up, bringing the Campos driver right back onto his gearbox. A measured move down the Wellington Straight allowed Tsolov to secure his fifth win of the season and put the pair level on 116 points, with Tsolov ahead on countback.

“If you’re consistently winning, that’s the best you can do,” Tsolov told Feeder Series in the post-race press conference. “I’ve just been in the situation more times where I have the opportunity to win, and I took advantage of that and used it to my benefit. I think if [Minì] is in position to win as many times as me, then he would’ve also done it. I think consistency is more important than win count, but when you can win, you win.”

“To win, you have to create opportunities and risk quite a lot,” Minì replied. “Of course that is not sustainable. It can go well once or twice, and then three or four times it can go wrong. In the end, the goal is to maximise the results. For me that’s been podiums, for Nikola that’s been wins, but we are both tied on points. We just have to keep on doing what I’ve been doing, which is to maximise everything, and then see if you can win.”

Off the line, Van Amersfoort’s Villagómez got a strong launch, going around the outside of front-row starter Ritomo Miyata of Hitech to take second place erstwhile championship leader Minì held the lead and began to form a gap. Tsolov was the biggest mover on the first lap, jumping from sixth to fourth by the first corner and passing Miyata around the outside at Turn 3 to take third.

Losing positions to Villagómez and Tsolov put Miyata on the defensive. The Hitech driver nearly lost the car at Becketts, allowing Invicta Racing’s Joshua Dürksen to capitalise on the mistake and move up into fourth at Stowe. 

There was then contact between Sebastián Montoya and John Bennett on the start-finish straight, bringing out the safety car on lap two. Hitech’s Colton Herta had gone up the inside of Montoya, sending him bouncing over a kerb and into the gravel beside the main straight. Bennett went off in avoidance but ended up with a cloud of gravel in his face and made contact with the rear of the Prema car. The Spielberg sprint winner and runner-up both suffered early exits as a result.

After a prolonged safety car period, racing resumed on lap seven. Minì made a clean getaway, while Villagómez remained under pressure from Tsolov. On lap eight, Villagómez had an sloppy exit from Becketts through Chapel, and Tsolov closed in and went around the outside of the Mexican driver to take second place. The two championship rivals were now up at front, occupying the top two spots. 

From lap 11 onwards, the race turned into a four-way fight between Minì, Tsolov, Villagómez and Dürksen, with Tsolov keeping himself in striking distance so that Minì couldn’t afford to relax at the front. 

On lap 14, Tsolov found himself within DRS range of Minì and closing the gap with confidence. On lap 16, Tsolov closed in further and made his first move through Stowe, but Minì closed the door. Tsolov tried again into Stowe a lap later, but Minì was aware of the threat and kept him behind.

On lap 20, Tsolov returned to an attacking position, and as Minì locked up at the Loop, Tsolov was gifted one final opportunity down the Wellington Straight. With the help of DRS, Tsolov drew alongside Minì on the straight and got it done all the way around the outside of Brooklands, taking the lead and soon the race win. Minì’s costly mistake, plus a later moment of oversteer, even gave Villagómez a chance, but the Italian held on to second. 

Villagómez still secured his second sprint race podium in as many races, which amount to his only points finishes of 2026.

“Qualifying, that was the weak point from last year,” Villagómez said. “We’ve definitely improved that. We knew we had the pace in some of the races, but in qualifying we just couldn’t extract the most. This year that changed. It’s been better and almost every driver is looking to improve race after race, so we were looking at that. The main target now for the team is to improve a little bit of the race pace rather than qualifying because it seems like we have a little bit more tyre deg than the rest.”

ART Grand Prix’s Kush Maini had also caught Dürksen and made an overtake on lap 15 around the outside at Brooklands for fourth place. Inthraphuvasak followed one lap later and came home behind Maini in fifth, making it the first time ART put two cars in the top five since the final race of 2023.

Dino Beganovic was sixth ahead of teammate Roman Bilinski, with Dürksen falling off in the end but holding on to the final points position in eighth. Beganovic earned an extra point for setting the fastest lap among those in the top 10, though his 1:44.852 was still more than three tenths off the 1:44.533 set by 19th-placed Cian Shields.

Miyata’s difficult race continued as Inthraphuvasak went past him at Stowe on lap 10. On lap 13, after several laps of pressure, Bilinski got the move completed on the Toyota junior, who also lost two more positions to DAMS’ Dino Beganovic and Rodin’s Alex Dunne over the next lap. With that, he had fallen to 10th and outside the points, and he lost one more spot on lap 16 to Rafael Câmara.

Sunday’s polesitter, meanwhile, survived a poor opening lap on which he lost four positions. Rodin Motorsport’s Martinius Stenshorne contributed to it with a late dive that sent Câmara off the track at Vale, for which the Norwegian received a 10-second time penalty. Stenshorne was later sent spinning in an incident on lap 19 with Nicolás Varrone, who earned a five-second penalty for causing the contact. Stenshorne trundled home over the last two laps and finished 20th, two minutes and 25 seconds behind Tsolov, continuing his torrid run of results since Monaco.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency