Ritomo Miyata claimed victory in the Formula 2 (F2) Sprint Race at the 2026 Spanish GP, finishing ahead of Emmerson Fittipaldi Jr. and Laurens van Hoepen at Madrid.
F2 returned to Madrid on Saturday for the Sprint Race at the 2026 Spanish GP, with Emerson Fittipaldi Jr. lining up on reverse-grid pole alongside Ritomo Miyata.
Friday’s Qualifying saw Dino Beganovic come out on top after three red flags interrupted a chaotic session. The DAMS Lucas Oil driver secured his second pole position of the season, while Alex Dunne and Rafael Câmara completed the top three for Sunday’s Feature Race. Fittipaldi Jr. finished P10, handing the AIX Racing driver reverse-grid pole for the Sprint Race, with Miyata joining him on the front row.
Following Qualifying, the Stewards deleted Nico Varrone and Kush Maini’s fastest lap times after holding each driver responsible for separate red flags. They later granted both drivers permission to start the Sprint and Feature Races, alongside Sebastián Montoya and Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, who failed to set a time within 107% of the fastest lap.
Colton Herta initially faced a pit lane start for the Sprint Race after Hitech carried out work on his car during the restricted period without an approved exception. However, Hitech later withdrew Herta from Saturday’s race due to the American driver feeling unwell, moving each driver behind him up one position on the final starting grid.
Chaotic start caused first Safety Car disruption
Due to barrier repairs during and after F1 Free Practice 3, the F2 Sprint Race was delayed, with a new starting time 20 minutes after the planned start in Madrid. While most of the drivers started on the hard tyres, Minì, Boya and Van Hoepen used the soft compound to start their race around Madrid.
Fittipaldi led the pack into the first corner of the Madring, though Miyata took the lead straight away from Fittipaldi while John Bennett stopped at turn 4 after making contact with Montoya. Shortly after Nico Varrone stopped on track after Kush Maini crashed into the side of the Van Amersfoort driver with both incidents happening, race control sent the Safety Car put on track to recover the car.
Maini and Varrone all retired from the F2 Sprint Race in Madrid due to suffering from too much damage from lap 1 of the race. Bennett and Montoya were able to rejoin the race, to collect data for tomorrow’s Feature Race.
Clean restart as tyre strategies start to show
With the Safety Car ending, Miyata led the grid into the restart of the race, staying in front while Câmara needed to defend from Alex Dunne behind him as the Invicta driver went deep across the second apex, while Boya and Minì stayed in close contention as their soft tyres were still holding on. Meanwhile, Bennett needed to retire his car as the team detected further damage on the TRIDENT.
With DRS being activated, Câmara was able to make the gap between him and Dunne behind him a bit bigger, though the Irishman stayed close to the Invicta, as he was still trying to overtake for P7. Meanwhile, Van Hoepen, the third driver on the soft compound, closed in to León in P3, challenging the Campos driver for the podium while championship leader Tsolov seemed to fall back a bit from Van Hoepen, though staying within the second.
Championship Leader retires from the race
Van Hoepen overtook León for third, but the Campos driver quickly reclaimed the position. However, León appeared to retake third only after leaving the track and rejoining ahead, prompting Race Control to place the incident under investigation. He passed León for P3 as the Campos driver was unable to stay close to the TRIDENT driver, with his teammate Tsolov right behind him who tried to pass him on lap 13. Tsolov went straight through the corner, not being able to overtake his Campos teammate.
Meanwhile, Fittipaldi in P2 tried to close in to Miyata in front of him, though he was unable to close the gap in under a second. Championship leader Tsolov was able to overtake León though only while leaving the track, having to give the position back to his teammate. Though this was not the end of the challenges for Tsolov, as the Campos driver spun one lap later on the track after hitting the inside of the wall, needing to retire the car, causing a second Safety Car out on track.
History made in Madrid
With the Safety Car out on track, multiple cars went into the pits to change their tyres before the race went back under green conditions. Miyata led the field into the second restart of the F2 Sprint Race in Madrid, with Fittipaldi and Van Hoepen close behind. The Hitech driver held onto the lead, while Van Hoepen immediately put Fittipaldi under pressure for second. Meanwhile, Câmara in P6 put Stenshorne under pressure for P5 as Minì made his way up into P8 on the hunt for points to close the gap to Tsolov in the championship.
With 3 laps to go Miyata held the lead with a comfortable gap of almost three seconds as Fittipaldi got pressured by Van Hoepen for P2. And while Van Hoepen had the advantage of DRS Fittipaldi kept him the TRIDENT behind him, though Van Hoepen was closing in, it didn’t seemed to be enough to overtake for P2.
Rimoto Miyata won the F2 Sprint Race in Madrid, claiming his first ever win in Formula 2 and being the first Japanese driver to claim a win since 2023. Emmerson Fittipaldi claimed his first podium in F2 as he came home in second, followed by Laurens van Hoepen.
