Formula 2 reached the halfway point of the season following its seventh round of the championship at Silverstone Circuit, and new championship leader Nikola Tsolov swept the weekend’s races, taking victory in both Saturday’s sprint and Sunday’s feature. Feeder Series analyses four things we learned from the weekend’s racing.

By Cliona Sheerin

Alex Dunne set the pace in Friday’s practice session before Rafael Câmara claimed his third pole position of the season in qualifying. Nikola Tsolov then took his first win of the weekend – and fifth of the year – in the sprint race before wrapping up the double with victory in the feature race.

• Pre-weekend roundtable: How F2’s rookies are leaning on their teams in their debut campaigns
• Qualifying report and quotes: Câmara thrills with third F2 pole of 2026 in Silverstone
• Sprint race report and quotes: Tsolov continues winning ways with last-lap pass in Silverstone F2 sprint
• Feature race report and quotes: Tsolov completes Silverstone sweep, takes sixth win of 2026 in F2 feature race

1. Tsolov’s patience and perfect starts shine through 

The Silverstone weekend undoubtedly belonged to Nikola Tsolov. His double victory is the first in the series since Zane Maloney won both races in the 2024 season-opening round in Bahrain. Even more impressively, the Campos driver has become the first in F2 history to win three races in a row, following his feature race triumph in Spielberg last weekend. 

But as in Spielberg, all was not plain sailing for Tsolov. A qualifying position of fifth gave him work to do off the line in both contests. But by the time the field reached Turn 4 on the opening lap of the sprint, the Bulgarian had already launched himself from sixth to third in the order. Similarly in the feature race, some brilliant positioning of his Campos through the middle of the pack and a better getaway than those around him saw him shoot up three spots to second place before the braking point of Turn 1. That’s now eight positions gained on the opening laps of the last three races for Tsolov, all of which he went on to win. 

Good getaways were only half the battle for Tsolov. The deciding factor in both races was his patient approach to pulling off the race-winning moves. That was particularly the case during the sprint, when Tsolov had to wait until the last lap to get around championship rival Gabriele Minì. The Italian kept Tsolov at bay in wheel-to-wheel battles through lap 20, but a costly lock-up from Minì on the 21st and final tour gave his opponent the run he needed to make the move around the outside of Brooklands. That mistake could mark a shift in momentum, not only in regard to the points swing but also in terms of the drivers’ mindsets during F2’s busiest period. 

Tsolov’s record-breaking weekend completely overhauled the points outlook. The Red Bull junior drew level with Minì following the sprint, and a sixth-place finish for Minì compared to Tsolov’s 25 points for victory in the feature race means that gap now stands at 17 points in the Bulgarian’s favour. 

2. Friday’s fastest driver fails to deliver again

A curious trend has emerged in F2 this season in the disconnect between qualifying at the front and finishing there in the feature races. The polesitter has converted their starting position into victory on only one occasion out of the seven rounds so far this season.

Three of those polesitters have failed to finish the feature races in which they have started from the front. Dino Beganovic in Melbourne, Laurens van Hoepen in Montréal and Rafael Câmara in Monaco were all retirees from pole position. 

After winning from pole in Barcelona, Câmara had a 50 percent rate of converting pole positions into wins heading into the weekend. He followed up a second place in practice with his third pole position of the year, remaining the only repeat polesitter at the halfway point in the season. That qualifying pace, however, did not carry over into the races. Câmara finished where he started the sprint in 10th and dropped to fifth in the feature race.

The Brazilian stays third in the championship, although the gap to Minì ahead has widened to 30 points. While they seem to have mastered qualifying, Câmara and his Invicta Racing team will now need to focus on their pace in race trim in order to prevent the top two from getting further up the road in the standings. 

3. Maini leads ART to their best weekend of 2026

Kush Maini has jumped up from ninth in the championship standings to sixth after two top-four finishes in Silverstone, including a first feature race podium of the season.

After a sprint race win in Barcelona that he said helped him fall back in love with the sport, Maini showed in Silverstone that he was more than capable of repeating such a result. The Indian driver made up four positions on his way to a fourth-place finish in the sprint race. He then led the field during the first stint of the feature race, having started third.

Although Maini was overtaken by the fast-charging Tsolov on his way to victory and alternate-strategy-runner Rafael Villagómez in the latter stages of the race, he held onto the final step on the rostrum with relative ease. 

Maini’s ART Grand Prix teammate Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak also enjoyed a solid weekend, finishing in the points in both races. It was only the third time this season that one team had put both cars in the points in each of the weekend’s two races. ART’s combined haul of 25 points was enough to lift them ahead of DAMS to fifth in the teams’ standings on 91 points – their highest in-season championship placement since Bahrain in 2024.

4. Villagómez continues surge with double podium

Another driver making moves in the championship is Rafael Villagómez, whose double podium in Silverstone meant he scraped into the top 10 in the drivers’ standings despite being last entering the round.

It has been a season of extremes so far this season for Villagómez. His only points finishes have been podiums, all three of which have come in the past four races. The Silverstone sprint race was similar to Spielberg’s in that the Van Amersfoort Racing driver finished where he started in third. 

But the feature race was by no means straightforward. Villagómez opted to start the race on the hard tyres and led the group on this alternate strategy after getting around Joshua Dürksen. He found himself in seventh after emerging from the pits on soft tyres, but within four laps he was on the back of Maini in second. Villagómez then made the move utilising his tyre delta, which may have been great enough to catch race leader Tsolov if he had two more laps. 

In the past two weekends alone, Villagómez racked up as many podiums as he had done across 103 starts in multiple single-seater categories from 2022 to 2025. It marks a notable turnaround from a bruising start to the season, and at the midway point of the season, he now sits 10th in the standings, tied with Miyata on 30 points but ahead on countback thanks to his podium finishes.

Results and standings after round 7 at Silverstone 

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Rafael Câmara, 1:39.690	Alex Dunne, +0.201s	Kush Maini, +0.202s
Sprint race (21 laps)	Nikola Tsolov, 41:04.635	Gabriele Minì, +1.291s	Rafael Villagómez, +1.698s
Feature race (29 laps)	Nikola Tsolov, 51:22.101	Rafael Villagómez, +3.233s	Kush Maini, +7.881s

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Nikola Tsolov, 141	Campos Racing, 210
P2	Gabriele Minì, 124	MP Motorsport, 152
P3	Rafael Câmara, 94	Rodin Motorsport, 140
P4	Alex Dunne, 92	Invicta Racing, 120
P5	Noel León, 69	ART Grand Prix, 91
P6	Kush Maini, 63	DAMS, 79
P7	Dino Beganovic, 57	Trident, 64
P8	Martinius Stenshorne, 48	Hitech, 50
P9	Laurens van Hoepen, 47	Van Amersfoort Racing, 44
P10	Rafael Villagómez, 30	Prema Racing, 38

Read our takeaways from the previous round here.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency