Formula 2 kicked off its third set of back-to-back rounds in 2026 with an action-packed outing at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. The weekend belonged to Invicta Racing, who continued their historical Spa success by staging a clean sweep in the Ardennes. Feeder Series breaks down four things we learned from a high-stakes eighth round of the season in Belgium. 

By August Bamford

On Friday, Campos Racing’s Nikola Tsolov led practice before Invicta’s Rafael Câmara snatched pole. Joshua Dürksen claimed the sprint race victory on Saturday before he handed the baton over to teammate Câmara on Sunday, the Brazilian overcoming a red flag in the feature race to convert his fourth pole position into his second victory of the season.

• Pre-weekend roundtable: F2’s Bilinski and Varrone hope for consistency amid changeable Spa conditions
• Qualifying report and quotes: Câmara leaves it late to snatch fourth F2 pole of the year in Spa
• Sprint race report and quotes: Dürksen: ‘I knew I had a very good chance’ to win Spa F2 sprint from fourth
• Feature race report and quotes: Câmara converts pole to victory in chaotic Spa F2 feature race

1. Spa continues to be Invicta’s playground in F2

History has a funny way of repeating itself. In 2025, Spa played hosts to one of Invicta Racing’s finest weekends, one that saw eventual F2 champion Leonardo Fornaroli claim the sprint race victory before Roman Staněk sealed the double with a win in Sunday’s feature race. That points haul catapulted Invicta to the top of the teams’ championship, laying the groundwork for their eventual teams’ title.

One year later, it was as if time hadn’t even passed. Invicta arrived in Belgium and showed that they were as dominant as they were 12 months ago. Câmara took the initiative early by capturing his fourth pole position of the season. Though he lost the lead at the start of the feature race to ART’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, the Ferrari academy driver carved his way back through the field following the red flag to secure an impressive victory.

Joshua Dürksen put on an overtaking clinic of his own on Saturday, slicing through the field from fourth on the grid to earn a win of his own in the sprint race.

The double victory puts Invicta only two points behind MP Motorsport for third in the teams championship and just five behind second-placed Rodin Motorsport. With five rounds remaining, momentum is on their side, especially looking at the calendar ahead. Later this week, the field will go to the Hungaroring, where Câmara took a commanding victory in last year’s F3 feature race to wrap up the drivers’ title. Further down the line, F2 will head to the Yas Marina finale, where Dürksen has famously won the last two F2 feature races with AIX. If past performances are anything to go by, there could be plenty more celebrations to come for the Norfolk-based squad and their drivers.

2. Tsolov pads points lead as rivals face woes

A fourth place in Saturday’s sprint race meant that Campos Racing’s Nikola Tsolov saw his three-race winning streak end. By his recent dizzying standards, missing out on the top step was just a minor blip on the radar, but it was as close to a slump as the championship leader has shown in weeks.

Any hope his title rivals had of capitalising on such a moment, however, quickly went up in smoke. Instead of closing the gap, Tsolov’s closest adversaries suffered from a series of misfortunes that left them worse off than they were before this weekend. 

The main casualty was Tsolov’s chief title rival Gabriele Minì. The MP driver had a rocky qualifying and placed down in 17th, and his sprint race went no better as a mechanical failure forced him into an early retirement. Things looked just as bleak for Minì on Sunday after he sustained front wing damage and a five-second time penalty from an incident on the opening lap with DAMS’ Roman Bilinski. While Minì mounted a gritty recovery to sixth on the road and fifth in the final classification, Tsolov was still ahead of him, crossing the line one position ahead and ultimately assuming the third step on the podium after track limit penalties were given to Rodin’s Alex Dunne and Campos’ Noel León.

The net result was a swing in Tsolov’s favor in the drivers’ championship. What was a manageable 17-point lead for Minì to overcome entering the weekend ballooned into a 27-point deficit – more than an entire feature race win’s worth.

In the teams’ standings, Campos Racing managed to extend their advantage over MP Motorsport, though not by the margin they might have hoped for. León’s weekend yielded no points after he was disqualified for a team guest’s unauthorised use of a headset in the pit lane during the extended red flag. The penalty wiped out his seventh-place result in the feature race and handed Campos a €20,000 fine and a suspended 25-point penalty in the teams’ standings. Yet despite the organisational nightmare, Campos still leave Spa holding a comfortable 64-point buffer over a faltering MP Motorsport.

3. Stenshorne snaps mid-season slump and Rodin finds hope

Heading into Spa, Martinius Stenshorne’s campaign was in serious danger of spiralling. The Rodin driver was trapped in a gruelling three-round points drought stretching from Barcelona through to Silverstone – a miserable run dictated by a comedy of errors and ill-timed mishaps.

In Barcelona, traffic and poor track position in qualifying left Stenshorne stranded outside the top 10 without the pace to fight forward. Austria proved even worse after a set-up misfire left the Norwegian languishing in 21st on the grid. Though Stenshorne mounted a charge to sixth on Sunday, a post-race penalty for serving his mandatory pit stop just as the virtual safety car came out dropped him to 14th. Silverstone only brought more agony, culminating in a mechanical failure on the reconnaissance lap that prevented him from even starting the feature race.

Whatever changes Rodin introduced following Silverstone paid immediate dividends in Belgium. Stenshorne wasted no time putting his bad luck in the rear-view mirror as he started from second in the sprint race on Saturday. He launched off the line well to snatch the lead from reverse-grid polesitter Sebastián Montoya into Les Combes before conceding first position to Dürksen down the Kemmel Straight on lap 11. From there, Stenshorne held firm for second place, his first podium since Canada, and bagged the extra point for fastest lap. A 10th-place finish on Sunday on the unfavoured alternate strategy capped off his most productive weekend in months.

Previously at risk of sliding out of the top 10 in the standings, Stenshorne has now stabilised his position in eighth on 58 points, pulling within five points of Kush Maini and Dino Beganovic ahead of him. More importantly, he matched the pace and nearly the points haul of teammate Alex Dunne, proving that he and Rodin might have finally rediscovered the car’s potential on both sides of the garage. With his momentum restored, Stenshorne can look towards the final stretch of the season with renewed confidence.

4. Inthraphuvasak continues ART’s under-the-radar season

While flashier runs from Invicta, Campos and Rodin have dominated the conversation this season, ART Grand Prix have quietly put together a remarkably consistent 2026 campaign. The French outfit have scored in every single race weekend so far, building momentum with the most experienced F2 driver in Maini alongside the speedy rookie Inthraphuvasak. 

Maini grabbed headlines last time out at Silverstone with a podium in the feature race, but Spa belonged to Inthraphuvasak. From a career-best second place in qualifying, the Thai driver pounced at lights out on Sunday, sweeping past polesitter Câmara to take the lead into Turn 1. Though he conceded the top spot to the eventual winner on lap five, Inthraphuvasak executed a controlled drive from there and wound up second for his first career F2 podium. 

It’s a breakthrough result for the rookie who has faced an uphill battle since an incident in Montréal, where he suffered a heavy crash in qualifying. While he escaped major injury, he was declared unfit to continue on medical grounds. Inthraphuvasak failed to score in Monaco and Barcelona upon his return, but his form has surged over the summer. He delivered on the alternate strategy to finish fifth in the feature race at the Red Bull Ring, which he followed by taking a double-points haul in Silverstone.

Inthraphuvasak’s continuous growth leaves him 10th in the drivers’ standings on 46 points. His recent form, paired with Maini’s steady hands, means ART sit comfortably fifth in the teams’ championship on 109 points, proving that while they might be flying under the radar, the results on track are very real as they seek to rebuild to their pre-2024 best.

Results and standings after round 8 at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Rafael Câmara, 1:56.306	Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, +0.039s	Alex Dunne, +0.186s
Sprint race (18 laps)	Joshua Dürksen, 41:53.482	Martinius Stenshorne, +0.606s	Dino Beganovic, +1.273s
Feature race (21 laps)	Rafael Câmara, 1:11:20.230	Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, +5.458s	Nikola Tsolov, +7.463s

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Nikola Tsolov, 161	Campos Racing, 230
P2	Gabriele Minì, 134	Rodin Motorsport, 166
P3	Rafael Câmara, 125	MP Motorsport, 163
P4	Alex Dunne, 108	Invicta Racing, 161
P5	Noel León, 69	ART Grand Prix, 109
P6	Kush Maini, 63	DAMS, 87
P7	Dino Beganovic, 63	Trident, 64
P8	Martinius Stenshorne, 58	Hitech, 60
P9	Laurens van Hoepen, 47	Van Amersfoort Racing, 52
P10	Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, 46	Prema Racing, 40

Editor’s note, 20 July 2026, 21:14 CEST: This article was amended to correct the sequence of events through which Martinius Stenshorne gained and lost the sprint race lead.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency