Formula Two’s first Sprint Race of 2026 promised battles and drama. There were many fights up and down the grid, but Joshua Dürksen delivered an incredible drive to take the first victory of the season.

The early stages of the race

When the five red lights went out, Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak successfully maintained his lead into Turn 1. Behind the Thai driver, Oliver Goethe was immediately on a charge and was able to claim second place. However, all of his hard work was undone when he spun and conceded second position to Joshua Dürksen.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s rookie Nicolás Varrone also suffered from a spin and lost several places.

On lap 2, Dürksen moved to the lead of the race.

Lap 3 saw a battle between Nikola Tsolov and Martinius Stenshorne which resulted in a 5 second time penalty for Stenshorne for “leaving the track and gaining an advantage”.

Lap 3 also saw both Laurens van Hoepen and Sebastian Montoya go off-track.

On laps 5 and 6, there was wheel-to-wheel action between Rafael Câmara and Kush Maini as well as Tsolov and Alex Dunne.

Tsolov and Herta were battling on lap 8, but Tsolov spun after potential contact between the pair.

More fights continued up and down the field, but one driver who had issues was Rafael Villagómez, spinning at Turn 13 on lap 14. Tsolov also suffered on lap 14 when he went off-track and dropped a significant amount of positions.

The safety car period

Lap 14 was one that saw a lot of smaller incidents. However, the major incident was PREMA’s Mari Boya finding the wall and causing a safety car. From the replays, it looked as if the Spaniard simply lost control and hit the wall.

Several drivers opted to pit, and replace their tyres with brand new Supersoft Pirellis.

One of the drivers who did not pit was Gabriele Minì who had gained 16 places when the Safety Car was called.

The return to racing

On lap 18, the Safety Car ended. Dürksen got the perfect restart, catching Inthraphuvasak off-guard and building an impressive gap almost immediately.

In the midst of the restart, Campos Racing’s Noel León managed to move up to second position.

Lap 22 saw Italian Minì go very wide and risk his impressive charge from the back of the grid.

On lap 23, Joshua Dürksen crossed the line to finish first in the Melbourne F2 Sprint Race. Noel León finished in second and Martinius Stenshorne in third.

However, due to Stenshorne’s penalty, he was demoted to tenth position and his Rodin teammate, Dunne, was promoted to third.