Leon claims maiden win, Mini takes points lead in F2 Montreal sprint

Photo: Formula Motorsoprt Ltd

Noel Leon claimed his first Formula 2 win as the Campos Racing driver claimed victory in the Montreal sprint race.

Gabriele Mini moved into the championship lead by finishing second while Martinius Stenshorne claimed third after a penalty dropped his team-mate Alex Dunne down and out of the points.

As the lights went out, polesitter Mini charged clear as Invicta’s Joshua Duerksen barged his way past Leon and Rafael Villagomez for second.

With Mini checking out in front, Duerksen and Leon continued to swap places, the latter eventually cementing the move on lap eight.

A train of cars would form behind, and Leon’s team-mate Nikola Tsolov looked for a move down the inside of Stenshorne but contact sent the Norwegian careering into John Bennett.

After securing a personal best starting position in qualifying, Bennett was helpless as he was spun around and left stricken at the turn 10 hairpin with the safety car required for the first time.

At the restart, Mini led Leon with Duerksen in third but the Paraguayan was slapped with a five-second penalty after his moves at the start were deemed too forceful.

Mini and Leon quickly began to pull away, leaving Duerksen to fend off Villagomez who passed the Invicta driver into turn 9. Duerksen’s race went from bad to worse as a mistake at the hairpin caused him to lose places to both Stenshorne and Tsolov before an error from Dunne then spun Duerksen around at the hairpin.

The safety car was once more required with Duerksen animated in his frustrations towards Dunne as the Rodin driver passed the stricken Invicta car.

Prior to the safety car, Leon made his move for the lead. The Mexican steamed down the inside of Mini into the final chicane and managed to hold the Italian off into turn 1.

That left Leon to control the pack with seven laps remaining as the safety car pulled in. A stellar restart saw him gain 0.8s by the second corner with Mini struggling behind.

Penalties began to be applied, firstly for Dunne who received a 10-second penalty following his clash with Duerksen, and then Tsolov who was handed an identical penalty for his earlier incident. Both drivers would drop out of the points after their respective penalties had been applied.

With five laps to go, Stenshorne challenged Villagomez for the final podium position, the Norwegian forced off the track at turn 1 before finding himself in third anyway after Villagomez found the wall at turn 3.

After Nico Varrone – who had dropped to the rear of the field after a stop-and-go-penalty for being out of position at the safety car line – was spun around by Cian Shields due to Mari Boya slowing on the exit of the turn 9 hairpin, race control issued a virtual safety car with two laps remaining.

Another superb restart from Leon followed as he timed it perfectly to lead Mini by 3.8s with one lap remaining. Dunne managed to find a way past Mini in what would be a pointless move once his penalty had been applied.

Laurens van Hoepen continued Trident’s impressive Montreal pace with fourth while AIX Racing’s Emerson Fittipaldi rounded out the top five with his best finish so far in F2.

Dino Beganovic claimed sixth with Rafael Camara and Roman Bilinski completing the points scorers.

Race results (28 laps)