MP Motorsport’s Gabriele Mini came from behind to take his second Formula 2 win of the season in Budapest, while championship leader Nikola Tsolov retired.
Mini lined up from the inside of the front row for Saturday’s sprint contest, and he prevailed in a three-wide battle at the start with chief title rival Tsolov and Trident’s Laurens Van Hoepen to maintain second. Prema’s Sebastian Montoya, meanwhile, made good use of reversed-grid pole to lead into turn one.
Montoya withstood early pressure from Mini, but his resistance was finally broken on lap 17 of 28. Mini moved to the outside into the first corner, and took the lead on the exit after Montoya locked up and ran wide..
Campos Racing’s Tsolov made a lunge up the inside of Montoya into the same corner on the next tour, but was unable to find a way by, having narrowly avoided collecting his rival.
Tsolov then repeated his move two laps later but this time he collected Montoya, and both drivers retired with car damage as a result.
The incident promoted Dino Beganovic to second, and the Swede maintained the position until the finish, coming one second ahead of Van Hoepen. Mini controlled proceedings up front to claim victory by 3.7s.
Invicta’s Rafael Camara finished fourth ahead of Kush Maini and Tsanapol Inthraphuvasak, while his team-mate Joshua Duerksen lost out to Noel Leon in the closing stages but took the final points-paying position in eighth.
Rodin’s Martinius Stensorne and Trident’s John Bennett completed the top 10.
Tsolov was handed a five-placed grid penalty for Sunday’s feature race after the stewards deemed him at fault for the collision with Montoya, demoting the Red Bull junior to 12th on the grid.
Featured image credit: F2 on X
