Red Bull junior Tsolov makes history with commanding Silverstone victory

The race, which began with Rafael Camara starting from pole position, immediately unravelled for the Scuderia Ferrari junior driver. A poor launch caused by wheelspin saw him lose four places before Turn 1. While Camara attempted to recover from his disappointing start, ART Grand Prix's Kush Maini stormed into the lead of the race.

Tsolov was another major beneficiary of Camara's poor getaway, with the Red Bull junior driver surging from fifth on the grid to second place. Alex Dunne, driving for Rodin Motorsport, moved up to third but was briefly overtaken off the track by the charging Camara. However, the Invicta Racing pit wall soon instructed the Brazilian to hand the position back to Dunne.

Amid the early-race chaos, PREMA Racing teammates Sebastian Montoya and Mari Boya made slight contact, although both drivers escaped without major damage. Soon after, Camara radioed his team about making an early stop, with his soft tyres already suffering from graining.

Shortly after Camara's message, the pit window opened and the leading duo of Maini and Tsolov both dived into the pits for an early switch to hard tyres. Camara followed soon afterwards in what quickly became an avalanche of pit stops.

Tsolov soon began applying pressure on Maini and looked set to make a move on the Indian driver just one lap after their tyre changes. However, Maini responded by producing an even quicker lap to maintain his advantage. Amid the battles among the early stoppers, Rafael Villagomez inherited the race lead and gradually built a sizeable gap to the rest of the field. The Mexican extended his advantage to more than eight-and-a-half seconds over Joshua Durksen in second.

The race was briefly interrupted by a yellow flag triggered by Montoya, who appeared to be nursing a rear suspension issue caused by his earlier contact with Boya. The Colombian was eventually forced to retire, capping off a frustrating British Grand Prix weekend.

When the action resumed, Tsolov renewed his attack on Maini and the pair came close to making contact on several occasions around the Silverstone circuit. The Red Bull junior driver finally completed the move through the famous Maggots and Becketts complex, an overtake that effectively handed him the net race lead once Villagomez made his pit stop.

Tsolov held on to take victory ahead of Villagomez and Maini, who completed the podium places. Dunne finished fourth, ahead of Camara in fifth. Gabriele Minì and Noel León crossed the line in sixth and seventh respectively, while Roman Biliński and Joshua Durksen finished eighth and ninth. Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak rounded out the points in 10th.

The victory saw Tsolov become the first driver to complete the Sprint Race and Feature Race double since Zane Maloney achieved the feat in Bahrain in 2024. He also became the first driver to claim three consecutive victories in a Formula 2 season.

With six wins to his name, the Bulgarian is now within touching distance of the Formula 2 single-season wins record, sitting just one victory shy of the seven-win benchmark jointly held by Charles Leclerc and George Russell.