Montreal – Main Race: Stenshorne wins a race with seven retirements, the championship shaken up

Winner of the first race of Formula 2 Martinius Stenshorne is likely to remember this scenario for a long time in his young career. The Norwegian, consistent and skillful, managed to avoid the numerous pitfalls of this main race to win under the Safety Car, ahead of his teammate Alexander Dunne and the Italian Gabriele Mini. Mini, in fact, leaves Montreal as the championship leader, given the various incidents that occurred during this chaotic race in Montreal.

Indeed, if Formula 2 has a leader of this caliber, now enjoying a slightly more comfortable advantage, it's largely thanks to the fact that the other top contenders failed to deliver. Finishing fifth, Nikola Tsolov was somewhat fortunate. The race was actually divided into several acts. The first saw the Bulgarian briefly battling Laurens Van Hoepen for the lead, the second forced him to fight his way back through the field, and the third allowed him to recover from his mistakes due to the numerous crashes.

Montreal welcomes chaos

First, it's true that Trident driver Laurens Van Hoepen, then leading the race, made a serious mistake in the early Quebec rain. He crashed heavily into the wall of champions, bringing out the first safety car. The entire grid then rushed into the pits. Nikola Tsolov lost the lead, while Josh Dürksen seemed to have lost everything, stuck behind his teammate Rafael Câmara, who had pitted just seconds earlier. At that moment, the top three had been completely reshuffled, with Roman Bilinski leading ahead of Colton Herta!

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But as if the twists and turns weren't enough, the deluge of retirements continued. Bennett was stuck in the pits, Villagomez was hit by Câmara, Goethe, Miyata, and Fittipaldi were involved in accidents, Dino Beganovic suffered an engine problem… Add to that the subsequent spin following a desperate overtaking attempt by the champion of F3 At the start of the first sector… Mistakes were rife. Ultimately, Gabriele Mini retained his championship lead thanks to his third-place finish, ahead of Nikola Tsolov and Rafael Câmara, now more than 10 points behind. From June 4th to 7th, in the streets of Monaco, such heated tempers could well lead to another exciting race… but wouldn't they benefit from a more measured approach?

F2 – Montreal (Canada)
The Main Race ranking