Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov gained a clear championship lead after coming from behind to win Formula 2’s feature race at Silverstone.
The Campos Racing driver climbed from fifth on the grid to claim victory by 3.2 seconds ahead of Van Amersfoort Racing’s Rafael Villagomez, who used an alternate strategy to snatch second.
Invicta Racing’s Rafael Camara started from pole, but he made a slow getaway and was swamped into Abbey, and it was ART Grand Prix’s Kush Maini who grabbed the lead from third on the grid.
Tsolov immediately moved into second, while Camara wrestled back third momentarily from Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne but had to hand the place back due to going off the circuit.
The leading quartet all headed for the pitlane on lap seven of 29 to make their mandatory tyre change, and Maini fought off a challenge from Tsolov for the net lead on the outlap before edging clear.
Tsolov closed back in with 11 laps to go, and tried to drive around the outside of the Alpine junior at Stowe. Having failed to make the move stick, the Bulgarian fought his way past on the next lap – moving up the inside into Copse and prevailing in a side-by-side battle that lasted until Maggotts and Becketts.
Villagomez led until finally making his mandatory stop with six laps remaining and initially emerged just ahead of Dunne and Camara, but was then picked off by the paur as he struggled to get his fresh soft tyres up to temperature.
Soon though, Villagomez’s tyre advantage against his hard-shod rivals started to pay dividends. He reclaimed fourth from Camara into Stowe two laps later, dived inside Dunne for third into Brooklands on the next tour and pinched second from Maini on the penultimate lap.
However, he could do nothing about Tsolov, who cruised home for his sixth win of the year. Maini came home third ahead of Dunne and Camara, while pre-event points leader Gabriele Mini lost ground in the championship fight by finishing sixth.
Campos’ Noel Leon took seventh ahead of Roman Bilinski and Joshua Duerksen, while Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak scored the final point in 10th.
Rodin’s Martinius Stenshorne did not start the race due to a technical issue, and Prema’s Sebastian Montoya retired in the pitlane with suspension damage.
Featured image credit: Formula 2 on X
