F2 Sprint Showdown In Spa Saw Durksen Take His Sixth Win In The Series
- therookiereporters
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Formula 2 took to Spa for their 18 lap sprint which saw a stellar performance from Joshua Durksen to take gold while the championship contenders in Tsolov and Mini struggled in the mid-field.
The Formula 2 grid saw many drivers with penalties following yesterday’s qualifying session but in the end it was Sebastian Montoya who took pole position in Belgium.
Lap one is always full of drama with Roman Bilinski having a scarily slow start testing the reactions of drivers around him such as Nikola Tsolov who moved up 2 positions in the first few corners. As the young prodigies made their way to Eau Rouge there was contact between Fittipaldi, Van Hoepen and Herta which saw debris scatter the track as front wing end plates took a blow. Stenshorne took a chance to overtake Montoya for the lead down the Kemmel Straight and an opportunistic Durksen attempt to steal second from the Colombian on the exit of Les Combes but to no avail just yet.
Championship contender Gabriele Mini managed to diva past Varrone in an attempt to mitigate the uncharacteristic qualifying that left him P14 for the sprint. While we had some clean contests we also had some messy moments, most notably for Miyata and Shields. Miyata had a twitchy exit seeing him lose positions and be swallowed up by the pack and in a desperate attempt to remain ahead of Cian Shields he ended up driving him right to the gravel. Shields then spun out of the race, beaching his AIX to no fault of his own at Malmedy.
Noel Leon was the next to retire from the race but this wasn’t due to an on track incident or an internal issue, it was simply because the supersofts he’d took a gamble on didn’t pay off, so he opted out of the race (which wouldn’t have got him points anyway) to save some tyres for the feature race with 25 points up for grabs instead.
At the halfway point and onwards we had a flurry of track limits warnings for the likes of Bilinski, Inthraphuvasak, Mini, Maini and Varrone. Speaking of Varrone he didn’t have a positive day out on track, having started 11th there was some hope for points but this was quickly quenched as he retired with an issue. The same lap that Varrone went into the pits, Mini followed suit after being told there was a risk of a fire, indicating a serious issue in his MP.
In the closing stages of the race, John Bennet had an unusual incident whereby he spun out at Blanchimont triggering the safety car to be deployed for the second time. Miyata and Maini chanced a pitstop for the supersofts to try and make some late moves on their rivals while the rest of the field steered clear of the compound change after seeing Leon’s struggles in the start of the race.
Tsolov made a dive on Montoya who was caught napping on the restart and was then vulnerable to Alex Dunne behind who made his way past the PREMA pilot at Eau Rouge, dropping him out of the points. In the end Dursken took the win with Stenshore on his gearbox in second and Dino Beganovic stole a third place finish to deny Tsolov of a consecutive podium streak with Campos.
There is bound to be even more action during the feature race in Spa Francorchamps so be sure to tune in and watch the rising stars of Formula One battle it out in Belgium.
Article written by Alice Seager ©️Alice Seager 2026
