Practice
Dino Beganovic secured top spot in Free Practice for DAMS Lucas Oil. The Swede put in a 1:30.720 to wind up fastest, just 0.015s ahead of MP Motorsport’s Gabriele Mini. Nico Varrone completed a tight top three, 0.021s off P1 for Van Amersfoort Racing.
Hitech’s Colton Herta set the early pace on a 1:33.077 in the opening 10 minutes of the session.
Teammate Ritomo Miyata then took over P1, with a 1:32.053 the new time to beat. Rafael Camara delivered a 1:31.484 to then go to the top for Invicta Racing by over half a second.
Sebastian Montoya and then Herta cut that down to four-tenths on their next laps, before Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak went P2 for ART Grand Prix, 0.219s off top spot with less than half an hour to go.
Martinius Stenshorne got closer still, moving himself up into P2, 0.102s off Camara’s time. That was before the Brazilian delivered an improvement of his own to move onto a 1:31.144.
Montoya and Mini then followed across the line to go second and third respectively.
Rafael Villagomez went to fourth place for Van Amersfoort before the Red Flag was out after Mari Boya found the barriers at Turn 1 following a big lock-up.
Mini dethroned Camara at the top of the times as he set a 1:30.744 to go four-tenths clear of anyone. Nikola Tsolov went P2 0.388s off the Italian’s effort.
Top spot changed hands again as the clock approached 10 minutes to go, with Beganovic going fastest. Tsolov then went quicker but lost his time for exceeding track limits.
That left the Swede top of the pile on a 1:30.720, with Nico Varrone right behind in P2, 0.021s off. Mini then managed to split the two on his next attempt, going second and just 0.015s behind Beganovic.
Qualifying
Kush Maini took his second pole of the 2026 FIA Formula 2 season , setting a 1:28.896 for the Aramco Pole Position Award in Budapest.
The ART Grand Prix driver beat title contender Rafael Camara by over a tenth of a second, with the Invicta Racing driver narrowly ahead of Campos Racing’s Noel Leon in P3.
With the green light displayed, everyone headed out for their opening attempts, and it was a heart-in-mouth moment for Joshua Duerksen as he reached the penultimate corner. The Invicta driver had to catch a big slide on entry to keep his car out of the barriers.
Nikola Tsolov set the pace with his first lap on a 1:29.601 to take top spot provisionally, 0.193s quicker than title rival Gabriele Mini who went to P2.
Leon opted to run later than the majority and he delivered a 1:29.486 to go quickest just ahead of the halfway stage.
Camara had done his outlap on Mediums before pitting and putting on the softs, so his first lap came slightly later too. The Brazilian went P1 on a 1:29.380.
Maini was one of those to set a lap slightly offset to the early runners too, and he filtered into third, 0.215s off top spot.
Camara went again on the same set of Softs and he improved his time to take the benchmark effort down to a 1:29.323.
With less than 10 minutes to go, the early group headed back onto the circuit once more, and Tsolov set a 1:29.313 to pip his title rival to top spot.
Mini went to third place until Duerksen went to P1 on a 1:29.106, but Maini improved. He was the first underneath a 1:29s to lead the field. Teammate Inthraphuvasak made his own improvement to go third quickest entering the final five minutes.
As those drivers filed back into pitlane, Camara headed back onto track with three minutes to go.
Laurens van Hoepen went up to fourth ahead of Tsolov with the Bulgarian back in the pits, while Alexander Dunne could only manage P15 on his final lap.
With the clock at zero, the final laps filtered through. Leon went to second place until Camara displaced the Mexican driver for a front row start, but nobody could beat Maini.
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