Maini claims F2 pole in Hungary

Kush Maini has taken his second pole of the 2026 FIA Formula 2 season with a 1m28.896s at the Hungaroring on Friday. The ART Grand Prix driver beat title contender Rafael Câmara by over 0.1s, with the Invicta Racing driver narrowly ahead of Campos Racing's Noel León in P3. 

With the green light displayed, everyone headed out for their opening attempts, and it was a heart-in-mouth moment for Joshua Duerksen as he reached the penultimate corner. The Invicta driver had to catch a big slide on entry to keep his car out of the barriers. Nikola Tsolov set the pace with his first lap on a 1m29.601s to take top spot provisionally, 0.193s quicker than title rival Gabriele Minì who went to P2.

León opted to run later than the majority, and he delivered a 1:29.486 to go quickest just ahead of the halfway stage. Câmara had done his outlap on Mediums before pitting and putting on the Softs, so his first lap came slightly later, too. The Brazilian went P1 with a 1m29.380s. 

Maini was one of those to set a lap slightly offset to the early runners, and he filtered into third, 0.215s off top spot. Câmara went again on the same set of Softs and he improved his time to take the benchmark down to a 1m29.323s. 

With less than 10 minutes to go, the early group headed back onto the circuit once more, and Tsolov set a 1m29.313s to pip his title rival to top spot. Minì went to third place until Duerksen went to P1 at 1m29.106s, but Maini also improved. He was the first underneath a 1m29s to lead the field at 1m28.896s. Teammate Inthraphuvasak made his own improvement to go third-quickest entering the final five minutes. 

As those drivers filed back into pitlane, Câmara headed back onto track with three minutes to go. Laurens van Hoepen went up to fourth and ahead of Tsolov with the Bulgarian back in the pits, while Alexander Dunne could only manage 15th on his final lap. 

With the clock at zero, the final laps filtered through. León went to second place until Câmara displaced the Mexican driver for a front row start, but nobody could beat Maini. Duerksen stayed fourth at the checkered flag, with Inthraphuvasak fifth. Van Hoepen was sixth for Trident ahead of championship leader Tsolov in seventh. Dino Beganovic went to eighth place for DAMS Lucas Oil ahead of Minì in P9, and Montoya in P10. 

The FIA Formula 2 Sprint Race is set to get underway on Saturday afternoon at 14:15 local time.