Tsolov forces Camara error to claim Monaco F2 feature race victory

Photo: Red Bull

Nikola Tsolov capitalised on a mistake by his championship rival Rafael Camara to claim victory in the Monaco Formula 2 feature race.

Alex Dunne took second while Dino Beganovic snatched away third on the last lap from Kush Maini.

Camara led the field away at lights out, Tsolov and Dunne following behind while Martinius Stenshorne and Noel Leon went wheel-to-wheel up Beau Rivage for sixth.

Further back, Oliver Goethe found himself squeezed against the pit wall at the start by Hitech’s Ritomo Miyata, the Japanese driver seemingly unaware of the German’s presence up the inside.

By lap seven, Tsolov started closing up behind Camara, the Bulgarian now just 0.4 seconds behind. Elsewhere, both Sebastian Montoya and Laurens Van Hoepen opted to go early with their pitstops, removing their supersoft tyres to run the soft tyres for the remaining 33 laps.

As the field reached halfway distance, Camara had managed to move out of DRS range from Tsolov behind while Dunne and Beganovic followed behind. Having gained three positions at the start, Prema’s Mari Boya was enjoying an upturn in fortunes as he battled with Goethe for 12th.

By lap 26 the first of the front runners came into the pits; championship leader Gabriele Mini opting to get rid of his soft tyres but a slow stop helping to drop the Italian from fifth down to 17th.

As Mini exited the pits, Montoya looked to the outside of the MP Motorsport driver, soaring round the outside of Massenet before moving himself a position higher when he passed Roman Bilinski into Mirabeau.

Three laps later Beganovic was into the pits from fourth on the grid, returning to the track in 11th place, while further back his team-mate Bilinski found himself being passed by Noel Leon coming out of the tunnel.

With 10 laps remaining, the top 10 still needed to complete their mandatory pit stop. Tsolov and Stenshorne dived for the pits, rejoining in sixth and 10th respectively.

Camara responded the following lap along with Dunne. The Brazilian re-joined in third, still in the net race lead, while Dunne momentarily found himself ahead of Tsolov in the pitstop phase before the Campos driver forced his way back past.

Tsolov quickly closed up to the back of Camara who was struggling with grip on cold tyres, and the pair headed into Sainte Devote wheel-to-wheel. The Brazilian though misjudged his braking point and skated off into the runoff area where he would retire from the race while Tsolov took over the net race lead.

Just as the virtual safety car was deployed, Miyata dived for the pits from second, re-joining in sixth and a net third place but was unable to hold off the charging pack with Beganovic soon reclaiming net third.

With a lap to go, Maini finally made his pitstop and conceded the lead to Tsolov, who crossed the line to claim his third victory of the season.

Behind Dunne, Beganovic snatched third away from Maini who had struggled to get his tyres up to temperature, the Indian narrowly holding off Stenshorne in fifth.

Race results (42 laps)

Race results (42 laps)