Red Bull talent loses F2 championship lead after chaotic Sprint in Canada

The championship leader heading into the Sprint, Nikola Tsolov, originally finished fifth but was handed a costly time penalty, dropping him outside the points. As a result, Minì now leads the drivers' standings.

After finishing tenth in qualifying yesterday, Mini was on pole for today’s Sprint Race in Montreal. The Italian youngster kept the lead at the start, while Joshua Durksen and Leon made contact at Turn 2. After losing the position to the Paraguayan driver, Leon moved back into second place on Lap 3.

Mini was comfortably in the lead after the first ten laps ahead of Leon and Durksen, while Nicolas Varrone received a stop-and-go penalty for a starting procedure infringement.

On Lap 10 into the famous Montreal hairpin, Red Bull talent Tsolov made contact with Stenshorne, which led the Norwegian to spin John Bennett around. The British driver stalled on track, which then led to a Safety Car. The stewards found the Bulgarian to be at fault for the incident, and gave him a ten-second time penalty.

Leon did well on the restart and, similarly to Kimi Antonelli, tried to go around the outside into Turn 1 on lap 15, but backed off, allowing Mini to keep the lead. Durksen was also under immense pressure from Villagomez and received a five-second penalty for his race start incident with Leon. After cutting the last chicane, he was also asked to return the position to Villagomez, and later lost another position to Stenshorne after the hairpin.

The hard-fought battles continued on Lap 17, as Tsolov managed to get past Durksen and Leóe once again attacked Mini into Turn 1, but without success. A lap later, the Mexican made the move stick ahead of the final chicane, while Durksen also spun at the hairpin after making contact with Dunne and stalled on track, bringing out the second Safety Car of the day. Alpine's Irishman was handed a ten-second time penalty as a result.

Unlike Mini, Leon began pushing before the chicane on the restart and caught his rivals by surprise. On Lap 25, Stenshorne also attempted a move similar to Antonelli's in the Formula 1 Sprint, but had to cut the corner and lost a position to Dunne. Villagomez also hit the wall exiting Turn 4 in the chaos, triggering a VSC. Cian Shields also hit Varrone from behind, causing another incident.