Despite starting the Sprint Race from P1 and finishing in P4, Noel León remains confident, looking ahead to Sunday’s Feature Race at the 2026 F2 Barcelona Round.
León has found strong results across the season-opening rounds, claiming 50 points and back-to-back Sprint Race victories in Montreal and Monaco. With this, he has now made his way up to P3 in the F2 2026 Drivers’ Standings, sitting just 21 points behind championship leader Gabriele Minì.
León analyses the F2 Barcelona Sprint Race
Starting from reverse grid pole, the Campos Racing driver had a slow start off the line, losing the lead to Kush Maini on the run down to Turn 1. Unable to find pace, he dropped down the grid, losing out to his teammate Nikola Tsolov, Minì, and Colton Herta. However, he later found himself battling for P3 in the closing laps of the race before ultimately settling for P4.
Speaking after the Barcelona F2 Sprint Race, León explained that P4 was the maximum result that he could have achieved today.
“I mean, it’s not what we wanted,” he said. “Today we maximised what we could achieve. We just didn’t have the pace to be up there. I’m happy with the things that I did, because I managed the tyres very well, and at the end I was able to fight a bit for the podium.”
“Unfortunately, I had an issue, so I couldn’t overtake. It’s a shame because I think the podium today was possible. But we’re still not very happy. Tomorrow, we need to make some adjustments to go faster and to be a bit more competitive.”
Overtaking will prove crucial in Sunday’s Feature Race as León will start P10 on the grid. Therefore, when asked what adjustments Campos Racing will make to be more competitive, he continued:
“I mean, we know where we can be stronger. The good thing is that in some areas we were quite strong. So I think if we fix this, we’ll be very competitive. I’m confident with the team that for tomorrow they will make a good set of changes and we’ll be competitive.”
Respect between the Campos Racing teammates
Nikola Tsolov was one of León’s main rivals when battling for the final podium position in the final laps of the Sprint Race. However, while Tsolov was ultimately the driver to take P3, León said that they have mutual respect and that it was evident on the track in their clean fight.
“It’s always difficult to race against your teammates, especially as we are battling in the championship,” he said. “So it’s always difficult, as you don’t want to make contact.”
“I want to be honest, we raced pretty clean, when I defended, when he defended. So at the end of the day, we didn’t have more, and at some point, we need to also be competitive. So with P3 and P4 today, it was the best we could do. The car was not able to go any quicker, and these things are very important. So tomorrow we’ll try to go further.”
Having this safe teammate battle also proved crucial for the team as Campos Racing has now extended its Teams’ Standings lead, currently sitting at the top with 118 points.
“I trust a lot in the team”: León on his success
Beyond Campos Racing’s 2026 F1 championship success, with this P4 result, León has moved up to P3 in the Drivers’ Standings, sitting just 18 points behind Tsolov in P2.
“I feel very confident, to be honest,” he shared, speaking about how the team’s recent strong performances helped him achieve this result. He continued, “I trust a lot in the team, in my engineers, and in my mechanics. I know there will be a massive step for tomorrow in terms of pace, and we’ll be able to do some good stuff.”
Looking ahead to Sunday’s Feature Race, he concluded, “Obviously, we want to close the gap. But it’s still a long way to go. We just need to focus race by race, and it will come naturally. We’ll see what happens.”
