Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov scored a maiden victory in Formula 2’s first feature race of the year in Melbourne, as a lead clash eliminated both Rodin Motorsport cars early on.
DAMS driver Dino Beganovic made a slow getaway from pole and tumbled to fifth, while Rodin’s Martinius Stenshorne fended off his fast-starting team-mate Alex Dunne to lead into the first corner.
The pair continued their battle on lap two before coming to blows as they commenced the next tour. Dunne edged ahead on the pit straight, but moved across on Stenshorne before he was fully ahead and caused a dramatic collision. Stenshorne slid off at turn one with suspension damage, and Dunne also spun into retirement.
The incident promoted Campos Racing’s Tsolov, who had initially gained two places from fifth on the grid, into the lead ahead of Trident’s Rafael Camara and Beganovic, and the safety car was deployed.
Tsolov maintained first place at the restart on lap six, and Beganovic was the first of the leading contenders to make his mandatory pitstop two laps later. He wasn’t able to undercut his way ahead of Tsolov and Goethe, who pitted on the next lap, and instead had to fight his way past Trident’s Laurens van Hoepen and MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe.
Beganovic continued his charge by passing Camara for a net-second place, but as he chased after Tsolov then slowed with an issue and pulled off the circuit. That resulted in a virtual safety car period, with the safety car subsequenly deployed for a second time.
This played into the hands of the still-to-stop Nico Varrone (Van Amersfoort Racing), who held a sizeable lead over AIX Racing’s Cian Shields at this stage. Shields was the first of the pair to make his mandatory stop during the safety car period, and Varrone came in one lap later and rejoined still in the lead despite a slow tyre change.
Tsolov took the restart in second, and wasted no time in reclaiming the lead by diving up the inside of Varrone into turn three and then pulled away. Despite being handed a five-second jump start penalty, Varrone briefly closed back in before coming under pressure from Camara, who eventually snatched second through turns 11 and 12.
Camara was unable to eradicate a 2.5s deficit in the remaining laps to Tsolov, who eventually took the chequered flag with a 1.6s winning margin to claim an early championship lead. Van Hoepen came home third behind Camara, the pair both taking their first F2 podiums, while Goethe finished fourth ahead of Ritomo Miyata and Tasanapul Inthraphuvasak.
Prema’s Sebastian Montoya and Invicta’s Joshua Duerksen both also suffered 5s penalties which dropped the pair two places to ninth and 10th respectively at the finish.
Hitech’s Colton Herta and MP’s Gabriele Mini were promoted to seventh and eighth as a result, the latter having recovered from 21st on the grid. Varrone dropped out of the top 10 in the closing stages, and was classified 17th after serving his penalty.
Featured image credit: Formula 2 on X
