Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
As Formula 2 brings its Monaco race weekend to a close, Jacob Awcock takes a look at four key talking points from the season’s most unusual paddock, based in a multi-story car park. From a world famous name returning to the front of the motorsport field, to a championship contender missing out on the chance to take the championship lead the Monaco paddock provided drama all weekend.
Prema showing signs of recovery
After a turbulent period, Prema is finally beginning to show glimmers of the pace they became so renowned for. Points for Sebastian Montoya in Sunday’s feature race backed up comments from Friday that the team has the pace to compete at the sharp end.
“I was pushing a lot to make sure we can make the changes that we needed to be competitive today which we were,” said Montoya ahead of Friday qualifying. “It didn’t come together, we have to check exactly what happened. At the last corner we were fighting for the top three, top four.”
While the Prema pair missed out on the points positions in Saturday’s sprint race, Sunday proved fruitful with Montoya claiming eighth while team-mate Mari Boya was unfortunate to miss out on the top 10.
It was as if the Colombian had predicted the result on Friday: “I’m really happy with where we were today [Friday]. We just need to make sure we keep going in this direction and keep pushing because I think we have a lot of speed, so we just need to make sure we keep pushing forward.”
Camara mistake hands rivals chance to pull clear
The defining moment in Sunday’s feature race came when net race leader Rafael Camara went straight on at Sainte Devote having struggled to get his new supersoft tyres up to temperature.
The Invicta Racing driver’s mistake handed his championship rivals the golden opportunity to claim a valuable points advantage over the Ferrari junior, who has been linked with a drive at Haas. Race winner Nikola Tsolov jumped Camara in the standings along with five more drivers, dropping the Brazilian to seventh.
Despite now having a 24-point deficit in the championship, Camara was insistent that there were many positives to take from the weekend into the next round in Barcelona. “There’s a lot of things [lessons to be learnt],” he said. “We did a different approach, we now go to a [permanent] circuit rather than a street circuit.
“We know the track very well, we know the rest of the tracks very well so it’s a bit different but a lot of positives and learnings to take from this weekend.”
AIX continues to progress with more points
Points in the Montreal sprint race got AIX Racing off the mark in the 2026 championship standings and Monaco continued a positive trend with seventh place for Emmo Fittipaldi in the feature race.
An inspired call by the team to pit the Brazilian early enabled the 19-year-old to profit when traffic and a virtual safety car held up frontrunners. Fittipaldi held off Prema’s Montoya and Campos Racing’s Noel Leon to claim his first feature race points of the year.
“Fantastic result here in Monaco in the feature race,” he said. “We put a lot of work here this weekend and it being my first weekend racing here, to get P7 I’m really happy.”
Back-to-back wins for Leon and Mexico
While the sprint race may have been below par in terms of the amount of action it provided, it did hand Mexican Noel Leon his second F2 race win.
Having become the first Mexican to claim victory in F2 since its rebrand in 2017, the Campos driver controlled the pack to storm to victory in Saturday’s sprint race having secured reversed-grid pole on Friday.
Speaking to the media after Saturday’s race the Mexican said: “Yesterday we looked pretty strong and in the end we didn’t close it but I’m very happy to get my second win.
“It took a bit long to get the first one but finally, as I said, the first one is always very very difficult to get and as soon as you get it, it’s a bit more easy and things go your way to help you to go further with the race. Pretty happy to have in my pocket the Monaco win.”