The Irishman Alexander Dunne won this Friday (the 25th) the opening main race of the 12th round of the 2026 Formula 2 season, held on the street circuit in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Rodin Motorsport driver started from pole position and took the lead for good after overtaking Oliver Goethe, who stretched his stint to move up through the pack. The race, planned for 29 laps, was ended after 23 laps due to a red flag.
Second place ended up in the hands of Martinius Stenshorne, who finished a little more than three seconds behind Dunne, his teammate. Dino Beganovic, who won the Sprint earlier in the night, completed the podium in third place with DAMS. Rafael Câmara finished fourth with Invicta Racing after overtaking Noel León in the final metres, relegating the Campos Racing driver to fifth.
Gabriele Mini, driving for MP Motorsport, sealed the fight in sixth place, finishing ahead of Roman Bilinski, seventh in a DAMS car. Rafael Villagómez ended eighth with Van Amersfoort, followed by his teammate Hiyu Yamakoshi, making his category debut this weekend. Kush Maini, from ART Grand Prix, came home tenth. Emmo Fittipaldi crossed the line in 12th with AIX Racing.
The race featured Safety Car deployments on lap eight when Mari Boya, a Prema driver, suffered an issue and stopped on track. On lap 12, a multi-car accident saw John Bennett hit the wall and Cian Shields lose control, being struck by Rafael Villagómez. The incident also involved Laurens van Hoepen, Ritomo Miyata, Joshua Durksen, and Nikola Tsolov. The red flag was shown on the following lap.
With the result of the main race, Rafael Câmara takes the championship lead, one point ahead of Tsolov and eight points clear of Dunne.
The Formula 2 wraps up its Azerbaijan stop on Saturday (the 26th), with the second main race of the weekend scheduled to start at 4:00 a.m.
