The battle for second in the Formula 2 teams’ standings has quietly become one of the season’s most compelling storylines, with just three points separating Rodin Motorsport and MP Motorsport and Invicta Racing only a further two behind. Feeder Series spoke with Rodin driver Alex Dunne and MP driver Oliver Goethe about their teams’ recent momentum and what it will take to come out on top in Budapest.

By August Bamford 

Campos Racing continued their march towards glory at the top of the F2 teams’ championship with Nikola Tsolov scoring the team’s 11th podium this season. For both Rodin Motorsport and MP Motorsport behind them, however, the fight for second represents a crucial step in re-establishing themselves at the sharp end of the F2 grid.

Since taking full ownership of the former Carlin operation in late 2023, David Dicker and his Rodin team have been searching for a breakthrough campaign, having finished eighth in 2024 and seventh in 2025. 

MP Motorsport, meanwhile, reached the summit once before in 2022, when they claimed their only teams’ championship off the back of Felipe Drugovich’s dominant drivers’ championship campaign. Since then, they have remained a consistent fixture in the upper midfield, finishing sixth in 2023, third in 2024 and fifth in 2025. With second place in reach, MP will be eager to continue that upward trajectory heading into the summer break.

Both teams arrive in Budapest for round nine of the season on the back of a dramatic Spa-Francorchamps weekend. For Dunne, the Rodin car showed encouraging pace, and he crossed the line second after battling at the front throughout the feature race. However, a five-second penalty for track limits dropped the Rodin driver to fourth, denying the Irishman what would have been a sixth podium finish of 2026. 

“Of course, the track limit penalty wasn’t ideal,” Dunne told Feeder Series at a virtual media roundtable ahead of Budapest. “It was difficult for the stewards because so many people had track limit warnings that by the time I was in trouble with track limits, I already had the penalty. I wasn’t told that I had two, three or four strikes – I was just told I had the penalty straight away. If I knew I was in danger, I probably would’ve taken a little bit more caution and maybe I could’ve avoided that, but it’s just one of those unfortunate things. The pace was good and a step in the right direction.”

The Hungaroring presents a markedly different challenge from the previous two rounds. After racing on the fast, flowing layouts of Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps, drivers now face one of the calendar’s most technical and twisty circuits, where precision takes precedence over outright speed.

“It still gives me confidence to a certain degree,” Dunne continued. “But at the same time, the way the track is here in Hungary is completely different to Spa. The way you set up the car, the way you approach a race is different, going from two of the highest-speed circuits we have during the year to a track that is mainly medium and low speed. So I think what you need from the car to give you pace is a lot different than Spa and Silverstone. I do think some of the steps we’ve made will put us in the right direction for the general year, though, not just for the higher speed circuits.”

Goethe, meanwhile, endured a frustrating weekend in Belgium. After securing a single point in Saturday’s sprint race with an eighth-place finish, Sunday’s feature race unravelled almost immediately. The MP driver was tagged from behind by Hitech’s Ritomo Miyata at Turn 1 on the opening lap, leaving him stranded on the exit and out of the race. It was an abrupt end to what had looked like a promising weekend for the German-Danish driver.

Spa, therefore, could be seen as a microcosm of how the 2026 season as a whole has gone for Oliver Goethe. While team-mate Gabriele Minì has led MP Motorsport’s charge up the teams’ standings, Goethe’s 2026 campaign has fallen short of expectations. After a fourth-place finish in Melbourne’s feature race, the 21-year-old endured a nine-race scoreless streak before finally breaking through at the Red Bull Ring.

Starting from seventh on the grid in the feature race, Goethe executed a clever alternate strategy, extending his opening stint before charging through the field on fresh supersoft tyres in the closing laps to secure his long-awaited maiden F2 podium in third place.

“We’re trying to go into the summer break on a high note,” Goethe explained. “It’s been a tricky first half of the year. We’ve had some really promising moments, but a lot of bad luck and also some mistakes from my side have cost me and the team quite a lot of points. Gabriele has been very consistent in getting a lot of points for the team, but from my side, I just need to really maximise the pace that we have, the potential that we have because it’s there.

“Finishing the race with more points is always needed to fight higher in the championship, so that’s what I’m looking to do this week to end the first part of the season. Also, last year, we were really strong here in Budapest, so we’re looking to have that pace again this year and maximise the races.”

Whether MP Motorsport can deploy a similar strategy at the Hungaroring is far less certain. Unlike the Red Bull Ring, the Hungaroring has a layout that limits passing, and the alternate strategy relies on the ability to make up significant time on fresh tyres late in the race. Any decision to put Goethe on a divergent strategy will depend on his qualifying position and what the team learns from Saturday’s sprint race.

“Strategy always plays a factor in the races, no matter which strategy you go for,” Goethe said. “There’s advantages and disadvantages to both. There’s risks and safer options with both. It depends a lot where you qualify, it depends on the track, it depends on the tyre deg. It is a big call in the end, but a lot of things can happen outside of your control.

“With both strategies, if you don’t have the pace, then it’ll be difficult to get results. Either way, if you have the pace, you should be able to make either strategy work, depending on if you don’t get too unlucky with the safety car as well. We’ll see what we end up going for, but it all depends on the sprint race and on qualifying.” 

Dunne approached 2026 as the highest-placed returning driver on the grid, giving himself a second chance to mount a serious title charge with Rodin Motorsport. While he remains in striking distance of the battle on 108 points, he has been just one step behind the chief title protagonists, Campos’ Nikola Tsolov on 161 points and MP’s Gabriele Minì on 134 points. 

The Irishman has had astonishingly consistent one-lap pace, putting himself on the front two rows of the grid at every single round so far this season. Yet despite that relentless Saturday speed, Dunne is still searching for his first race victory of 2026. He has come close on numerous occasions, scoring five podiums across the opening five rounds, but minor infractions have proved costly,  the track-limits penalty in Spa being the latest setback.

Despite those frustrations, Dunne remains unfazed by the state of the championship table.

“It would be nice to go into the summer break on a high note,” Dunne said. “But in terms of teams’ and drivers’ championships, I’m not really paying attention to it at the moment. There’s still a long way to go. If we go into the summer break in second or third or wherever, it doesn’t mean we can’t come back. I think for myself, I just want to maximise the weekends, get the most out of qualifying and the races, and where we end up is where we end up.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency