Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov snatched his third victory after a mistake denied long-time leader Rafael Camara in Formula 2’s Monaco feature race.
Invicta Racing’s Camara converted pole into the lead at the start ahead of Tsolov and Alex Dunne, while Martinius Stenshorne dropped two places to sixth behind Dino Beganovic and points leader Gabriele Mini.
Camara controlled the pace in the early stages, his lead gap hovering at around one second, but a trip across the chicane on lap nine allowed Tsolov to close in. Dunne, meanwhile, dropped over 2s away from the front two.
Tsolov had dropped away from Camara by the time he made his mandatory pitstop with 10 laps to go, with the latter mantaining a comfortable net lead after coming in on the next door and rejoining behind the still-to-pit Ritomo Miyata,
But extremely slow out-lap as he struggled to get his tyres up temperature resulted in Camara falling into the clutches of Camara, and the pair then went side-by-side on the pit straight. Camara tried to squeeze Tsolov as he tried to defend the inside into Sainte Devote, but braked too late and ended up down the escape road, where he would retire.
A virtual safety car period followed while Camara’s car was retrieved, and Tsolov cruised to victory once green-flag running resumed, the Campos Racing driver taking the chequered flag 9s clear Dunne. It’s the Bulgarian’s second win on the streets of Monte Carlo, having triumphed in last year’s FIA F3 feature race.
DAMS’ Beganovic came home in a lonely third, while ART GP’s Kush Maini benefitted from a well-timed late pitstop to leapfrog his way up to fourth ahead of Stenshorne.
Miyata also gained by pitting during the VSC, the Hitech GP driver taking sixth ahead of Emmo Fittipaldi and Sebastian Montoya. Saturday’s sprint race winner prevailed in another lengthy duel with Roman Bilinski on his way to ninth, the latter missing the chicane at one stage while trying to make a move.
Mini, meanwhile, missed out on the the points in 11th after a slow pitstop.
Featured image credit: Formula 2 on X
