Fresh off his win in Miami, MP Motorsport’s Gabriele Minì secured another podium finish during the Sprint Race at the 2026 F2 Canadian GP, crossing the line in P2 behind race winner Noel León. Despite starting on pole, the Italian’s podium finish sees him take the championship lead heading into Sunday’s Feature Race, as he now sits on top of the Drivers’ Standings with 42 points and a six-point advantage.
In the post-Sprint press conference, attended by Pit Debrief, he reflected on his race, noting that while his pace was strong early on, graining and tyre management became key factors he had to manage, which ultimately left him without enough pace to hold onto the lead.
Minì said: “We started pretty well. Had quite a lot of pace at the beginning. But after a few laps, I already could feel and could see visually some graining. I started managing after I got up to about two seconds, I tried to keep it there, but I could feel that we were missing a bit. I knew that the safety car was not what we needed.”
With that, a switch in mindset to survive and hold on to the podium places was what Minì focused on. In the end, the 21 year-old walked away with a valuable eight additional points to add to existing his tally.
“When it came, the restart was not so good. We missed quite a lot of temperature. Not ideal, but then it was quite clear that Noel [León] was a bit quicker. For me, the mindset switched to trying to pull a gap, trying to stay out there and pull a gap from the others. Trying to survive. In the end, we managed to do that and bring home second position.”
“Quite hard” managing tyres
As the 2026 F2 Canadian GP marks the championship’s first visit to Montreal, teams and drivers have no prior data or learnings to rely on. As drivers got their first race-distance experience today, he said it was “quite hard” to manage the tyres.
Although he expected it and began managing early in the race, the MP driver explained that they will need to reset and analyse in order to do better ahead of tomorrow’s Feature Race.
“I think it was quite hard.”, said Minì. “I knew that it was going to be like this, and I could feel it already from lap one that this was going to be what I would be struggling with, I started managing really, really early on, but clearly it was not enough. We just have to analyse data, see what I can do different, and what we can improve on the car and go again tomorrow.”
Minì: Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve “really enjoyable to drive” but not easy
When asked about his thoughts and impressions of the track, Minì said: “To be honest, it looks quite cool. I like the flow of it. Just at the beginning, it was a bit dusty outside, which doesn’t make it so easy, but after a few laps, it cleans up. You can use pretty much all the track, and it becomes really enjoyable to drive.”
Across the 4.361km circuit, tight chicanes and heavy-braking hairpins on a dusty track presents several challenges for drivers, including Minì himself. Explaining the compromises required around the lap, he said it took a while to find the fine balance between pushing and managing tyres.
“As I mentioned before, it’s not an easy track. A lot of chicanes and a lot of things going on. So it’s a lot about finding those compromises and also how much you push during the races in the early and in the late stages. I mentioned this quite a lot in the interview before.”
“It took some time in free practice to really find the compromise, but after qualifying we managed to arrive to that point. And then in the races, once again, it’s a bit of a different challenge because you have different setups, different track conditions, a lot of fuel in the car.”
“So it’s once again about the compromises that you find between pulling a gap and managing your tyres for the long run.”
Focus shifts to the Feature Race
Despite learning a lot about how the tyres behave today, those learnings may not carry into tomorrow’s race given the possibility of rain. Describing his race as one where he was “alone” for the majority of the time, he explained that the team will have to take it as it comes.
“Yes, a bit different for me because I wasn’t really involved in too many fightings, to be honest. Especially the first part of the race, I was pretty much alone. But yes, something that we will take for sure is how much we need to manage the tyres and how I have to drive and how the balance of the car needs to be for tomorrow.”
“As Noel mentioned, it’s probably going to be a wet race so realistically it’s not going to be much info that we will take for tomorrow, but we will see.”
With the possibility of rain, he further explained that he is expecting a potentially more chaotic race tomorrow, especially starting from P10.
He said: “For me, I was pretty much alone for most of the race because in the first part I had a second gap and then when I got overtaken, I was three seconds behind of gap and even at the end, there was quite a lot of fighting going on, so to be honest, I didn’t really need to avoid anything.”
“But for sure, if it will rain tomorrow, it will be more chaotic. I’ll be starting from P10, so for sure it’s a bit in the position where everything will happen, so we’ll see.”
“We brought home the maximum results” — Minì on finishing P2
Although he missed out on the win, Minì walks away from the Canadian GP Sprint Race with no regrets, believing he has maximised their result. The 21 year-old admitted that while the championship is not weighing on his mind at this stage, his focus is instead on consistency moving forward.
“I think I see it as eight points taken. It’s what we could do today.”, Minì explained. “As I said, we brought home the maximum result. We didn’t have the pace to win, clearly. The safety car helped us a bit to keep that position. I’m not thinking too much about the championship or anything like that. Every race will matter and I’m trying to focus on that.”
