DAMS Lucas Oil’s Dino Beganovic got his 2026 Hungarian GP weekend off to a strong start, topping the F2 Free Practice session ahead of Gabriele Minì and Nicolás Varrone, who completed the top three. Having returned to the podium in the Spa-Francorchamps Sprint Race last weekend, the Swede continues to build momentum as he prepares for Qualifying later this afternoon.
Reflecting on his Free Practice session, Beganovic said: “I think it was a good session. It was quite a dirty track out there today. It started off quite easy and then we picked up the pace throughout the run. I think it was good, especially getting a good feeling back behind the car from Spa. So we are feeling better.”
“It’s good to show it here in FP, obviously still only Free Practice but it’s a good indication for quali that we are on the pace and obviously we have still a lot to do. Driving wise, still a lot to come, so it’s a good start to the weekend.”
“Now it feels like we’re back” says Beganovic as performance resurgence continues
Sitting 7th in the Drivers’ Standings with 63 points, the 22 year-old will be aiming to secure another pole position after claiming the first of the 2026 F2 season in Melbourne.
“That’s how it feels like as well. It’s a bit like in the beginning of the year.”, Beganovic said when discussing whether he feels DAMS are now consistently fighting at the front.
“We were in a bit of a dark circle at one stage of the season, but now it feels like we’re back. It will be nice to have a good quali here and go for the two races with a good result, and then for the holidays.”
More improvements to be made ahead of Qualifying
With an F1 and F3 session taking place before Qualifying, the Ferrari Junior believes adapting to the changing track conditions will be crucial. Although predicting conditions remains difficult, he said DAMS will analyse their data from FP and look for further improvement ahead of the session this afternoon.
“It’s in the end a bit of a guessing game. You can try to expect things, predict things, but nobody really knows what we can expect. You can only predict a bit of stuff from years before, and what the tendencies have been.”
“We’re going to see, we’re going to look into the data, try to see what we could have improved still this session, and then what we can do for quali to make it even better.”
Looking to claim his second pole position of the season, Beganovic hopes it will be a fitting reward heading into the summer break. However, with podiums as the ultimate target, he knows a strong Qualifying performance will be crucial in setting the foundation for the rest of the weekend.
“Pole position would be nice. That would be a very nice way to go in the summer break, definitely.”, he admitted. “Podiums would be even nicer. We need a good result now, we need the points, and we have a good starting point of the weekend, so that’s great.”
