Rafael Câmara continued his impressive qualifying form in his debut Formula 2 season, adding another pole position to his tally with the fastest time around the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. The Invicta Racing driver was 0.039 tenths of a second ahead of ART Grand Prix’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak in second with Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne rounding out the top three. Feeder Series spoke to the drivers about the session in the post-qualifying press conference. 

By Cliona Sheerin

Things have been coming in twos so far this season for Rafael Câmara as he completed his second set of back-to-back poles at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. The Brazilian driver withstood stoppages, slipstream shenanigans and sprinkling showers around Spa in what was a messy session for all. 

“It feels good [to take pole],” Câmara said in the post-qualifying press-conference. “Intense qualifying – at the beginning, we didn’t really know if it was going to be wet or dry. But after, it made our life a bit easier. It stopped raining, so after that you’re just managing to make the basics well and preparing your own things. And on the second run, just fine-tuning a bit the set-up, so making sure you have a good balance and clean lap after.

“It was a bit of a mess also with the red flags.… Some drivers did a full lap basically [before the red flag]. So it was a bit tricky to come back and cool down and go back again.”

The session started with sprinkles of rain, albeit none strong enough to soak the track surface or alter teams’ choices of tyres. 

Alex Dunne, donning purple-sidewalled supersofts, was first to start a flying lap. However, the beginning of his effort coincided with a yellow and subsequent red flag for the stricken Noel León. The Mexican driver had touched the slippery kerb on drivers’ left at the top of Raidillon, sending him round and bringing a halt to the session. He did get going once more to rejoin the session, but once adjudged to have been the sole cause of the red flag post-session, he lost all lap times he had set. 

Undeterred by his earlier spin, León led the field on their first flying laps, but the top spot was usurped soon after he crossed the line by the Invicta duo of first Joshua Dürksen and then Câmara. Championship leader Nikola Tsolov set a purple second sector on his way to the top with a 1:57.389 before Dunne took the spoils in the other two sectors to go 0.265s to the good and into provisional pole. 

Following the time loss after the early red flag, several of the drivers decided to return to the pits after setting a single fast lap on their first runs, including the top two of Dunne and Tsolov. 

Câmara was not one of those drivers, and he improved to second place on his next attempt, cutting the gap to Dunne ahead to 0.223s. Inthraphuvasak, meanwhile, sat 10th at the halfway point of the session, having shown promise with a purple first sector on a second flyer that he eventually aborted. 

As the second half of qualifying began, so did the usual shenanigans of drivers’ reluctance to hand out a free tow to the rest of their competitors. The pack piled into the pits once more before filtering back out with León now at the helm. 

León was on his way to topping Dunne’s 1:57.124 from the first runs when the yellow flags came out once more, this time for Laurens van Hoepen. The Trident driver came to a standstill on the front straight, and León was forced to back off on his flying lap and obey the double yellow flags. He managed fourth with his throttled effort, but his lap time was soon chalked off entirely because of the yellow flags. Once he crossed the line, the red flag flew, bringing the session and the clock to a stop once more. 

With only 3:26 remaining on the clock, drivers would have just one chance to get their laps in on a rapidly improving track. 

León again took the unwanted role of leading the field, but with time of the essence, a dash to the line overruled the usual jockeying for track position. The Campos driver briefly went to the top of the standings with a 1:56.844 before immediately being bested by his teammate Tsolov with a 1:56.699. Câmara, who did his best work in sector two with a session-best time, was next to go to the front with a 1:56.306. 

And there he stayed. Dunne could only manage second at 0.186s off the pace. It seemed for all the world that those two would be sharing the front row for the third time this season, but Inthraphuvasak spoiled the party moments later with a mighty first sector and a time that was only 0.039s shy of pole to leap from 21st to second. 

Drivers had to contend with maintaining tyre temperature and grip in what was a challenging, stop-start session. The long lap around Spa both helped and hindered that process, as the drivers told Feeder Series post-qualifying.

“The warm-up was not really a problem,” Câmara explained. “I got the red flag at T9, so tyres were hot. Also the red flag was not long, so also the tyres don’t cool down as much so you can do easily your warm-up, you can position yourself where you want. It was just maybe considering to [not] overdo it, that was the main thinking. Especially supersofts this year, you don’t want to get a big deg through the lap. After, it was just make sure you’re [in] a good position, and it felt like the tyres were holding well for the second push.”

“With the supersofts, coming into quali, we didn’t expect to improve on the second push,” Inthraphuvasak said post-session. “We all expected it to be on the first push. So with the red flag, coming in and most people already doing half of their lap or more played a big factor. A lot of people were improving just before the red flag as well, so [it] probably affected them. But after the red flag, most people managed to improve, so it was about nailing the lap on the last lap.”

“Even if we were on brand-new tyres, in general the warm-up here is easier than what we have at other tracks because the lap is so long,” Dunne said. “We have so many opportunities to put energy through the tyres and heat them up with the brakes as well. Even on the last run then, it was a bit easier, the fact that we had all done half or the majority of a push lap, so the tyres had already been through a heat cycle.”

Tsolov ended up fourth ahead of John Bennett in fifth, his best career F2 qualifying result, while Dino Beganovic was sixth. Dürksen qualified seventh for the second consecutive round, while Bilinski will start where he finished the feature race last time out in Silverstone in eighth. Martinius Stenshorne qualified in the top 10 for the first time since the Monaco round and will line up on the front row tomorrow alongside Sebastián Montoya, who was promoted to 10th and sprint race pole after original 10th-place qualifier León lost all his lap times. 

Gabriele Minì, who is second in the championship, had a qualifying to forget and will start both races from 16th. So too did Ritomo Miyata, who qualified 21st, 2.989s off Câmara’s benchmark, after setting the second-fastest time last year.

After the session, Câmara, Inthraphuvasak, Dürksen, Bilinski, Montoya, Emerson Fittipaldi Jr, Rafael Villagómez and Cian Shields were all placed under investigation for allegedly failing to respect double-waved yellow flags at Turn 19 after Van Hoepen stopped. Villagómez received two penalty points and a five-place grid drop for both races for failing to respect single yellows, while Fittipaldi and Shields were handed 10-place penalties for the sprint and feature races for failing to respect double-waved yellows. Three penalty points were also added to their licences. The remaining five drivers were found to have slowed appropriately and were not penalised.

Editor’s note, 17 July 2026, 23:37 CEST: This article was updated after publication with the outcomes of the decisions for alleged yellow flag infringements under investigation after the session.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency