BEGANOVIC WINS IN MADRID AS TSOLOV AND CÂMARA LEAVE WITH LITTLE
Dino Beganovic has won the Formula 2 Feature Race at the Madring, leading every lap from pole position. The Swedish driver of DAMS, a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy, finished 7.3 seconds ahead of Rodin’s Alex Dunne, with Hitech’s Ritomo Miyata third. It is Beganovic’s first win of the 2026 season and his first ever Feature Race victory in F2.
Beganovic had already taken his second pole of the year on Friday, in a qualifying session stopped by three red flags, with Dunne and Rafael Câmara completing the top three. Before the race, Hitech confirmed that Colton Herta would not take part, as he was still feeling unwell after his heavy crash in qualifying.
At the start, Beganovic kept the lead by closing the door on Dunne, who tried to attack from alongside him, while Câmara held third despite locking up into Turn 1. The first Safety Car came out on lap 3, when Kush Maini crashed into the barrier at Turn 18 after contact with Cian Shields, who later received a 10-second penalty.
The race changed completely with the second Safety Car. Câmara attacked Oliver Goethe into Turn 1, but the move went wrong and the MP Motorsport driver ended up in the wall. Câmara was given a 10-second penalty for the collision. The neutralisation was perfect timing for the drivers who had not yet made their mandatory stop.
Beganovic, Dunne and Miyata pitted on lap 19 and rejoined in the same order at the front, while Emerson Fittipaldi Jr., Joshua Dürksen and Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak also gained a lot of places with a cheap stop.
Racing resumed on lap 22 of 32, and Beganovic immediately pulled away again. With the interruptions, the race switched to a timed finish. Dunne closed the gap to around one second in the final minutes, but Beganovic answered with a very fast lap and extended his lead once more, as the two traded the fastest laps of the race until the chequered flag.
Behind them, Miyata completed a great weekend. After taking his first F2 win in Saturday’s Sprint Race, the Japanese driver gained six places to finish on the podium again.
Dürksen spent several laps behind Fittipaldi before passing the AIX driver with a clever move into Turn 13 in the closing laps to take fourth. Inthraphuvasak was sixth, a strong result after starting 20th, as a big crash in practice had kept him out of qualifying.
For the two championship leaders, it was a day to forget. Câmara fought his way back through the field, passing Mari Boya into Turn 5 with the help of DRS, but his penalty dropped him from ninth to tenth at the finish, leaving him with just one point.
Nikola Tsolov, who had already crashed out of the Sprint Race, followed Câmara for a while, but his pace dropped badly at the end. Roman Bilinski, Boya, Noel León, Laurens van Hoepen and Sebastián Montoya all passed him, and the Campos driver finished only eighteenth.
Gabriele Minì made the most of their problems. The MP Motorsport driver passed Martinius Stenshorne for seventh at Turn 15 and scored six points, with Stenshorne eighth and Bilinski ninth. León, meanwhile, received a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits.
After the race, Beganovic said winning in Madrid felt amazing and thanked his team for bouncing back after a difficult weekend at Monza.
In the championship, Tsolov still leads with 177 points, but Câmara is now only seven points behind on 170. Minì is third on 153, 24 points from the top, with Dunne fourth on 139 and León fifth on 119. Beganovic moves up to sixth. In the Teams’ Championship, Campos lead with 296 points, ahead of Invicta on 260 and Rodin on 209.
Formula 2 now moves to Baku for the Azerbaijan round from 24 to 26 September. After that, only two rounds remain, in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, although both are still uncertain because of the situation in the Middle East.
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