The Rettifilio chicane has a habit of deciding race outcomes before they have even begun. On Saturday, it handed Joshua Dürksen a Formula 2 Sprint victory that he fought for right down to the checkered flag. By Sunday evening, two entire championship battles had been transformed.
This is what happens when F2 and F3 come to Monza: the Temple of Speed does not do quiet weekends.
F2 Sprint: Dürksen strikes first
Commencing the race in fourth place, Dürksen only needed nine laps to find his way to the front. His target was John Bennett, positioned second on the road after starting from reverse-grid pole.
Dürksen gave it his all coming up to the Rettifilio chicane, made the move stick, and never looked back. Two Safety Car restarts later, he crossed the line in first place, with Bennett in second and Oliver Goethe completing the podium.
However, an even bigger story was unfolding behind them. Title contender Rafael Câmara spun after the first chicane and consequently failed to restart his engine. Roman Bilinski hit the wall and was forced to retired soon after.
Despite the drama, neither incident touched championship leader Nikola Tsolov, who managed to bring his car home in fifth. With Câmara scoreless, Tsolov’s advantage grew without him needing to do very much at all.
F2 Feature: An Invicta one-two flips the title fight
Sunday delivered a markedly different story. Câmara took pole with Dürksen alongside him, producing an all-Invicta front row. Misfortune befell Câmara at the start of the race, where he cut the chicane and handed the lead straight back to his teammate. The two continued swapping positions throughout the early laps before Dürksen pitted, emerged in command, and held it through a late Safety Car for a stranded Colton Herta. He secured his eighth win in F2 and his fourth of the season, equalling the series record for career victories.
Câmara, however, was the key figure in the title fight. His second-place finish, combined with the fastest lap point, delivered nineteen points against Tsolov’s six for seventh. Overnight, the twenty-four-point gap between them shrank to just eleven. Noel León took third for Campos, while Invicta’s Monza haul cut the team gap to Campos from seventy-two points to forty-seven.
Two races. One team. A championship picture unrecognisable from Saturday morning.
F3 Sprint: Kato’s day of days
Formula 3 opened its weekend with a result nobody saw coming. Taito Kato started in ninth place and picked off rival after rival until only Freddie Slater stood between him and a maiden win. Kato held firm over the final two laps to secure victory. Slater, who started the race in twelfth under F3’s reverse-grid format, fought his way through to finish in second.
That second-place finish did more for Slater’s title hopes than victory would have for most drivers. His closest rival, Ugo Ugochukwu, scored nothing, and Slater’s lead going into Sunday grew from eight points to seventeen. Hiyu Yamakoshi took third, with Yevan David snatching fourth from Alessandro Giusti on the final lap.
F3 Feature: Lacorte’s home miracle
Sunday was, notably, Italy’s time to shine. Nicola Lacorte, racing at his home round for DAMS Lucas Oil, secured his maiden F3 victory and became the thirteenth different winner of the 2026 season, cementing a new championship record. Slater started from pole and led the early stages of the race, but Kanato Le muscled past him for the lead at Turn 1 on lap six after a first Safety Car for a McLaughlin-Bhirombhakdi collision had bunched the field back up.
Lacorte took control of the race on lap ten, eventually beating Tuukka Taponen to the line. Taponen, securing his first podium since Budapest last year, finished in second place. The podium was completed by Kato, who finished in third, securing his second podium of the weekend. Behind them, Slater’s race unravelled entirely: he lost his right-rear wheel and retired on lap thirteen, ending his afternoon on the spot.
Ugochukwu’s Sunday started just as badly when he clipped teammate Théophile Naël at Turn 2 on lap two and spun to the back of the field to twenty-ninth place. What followed was one of the drives of the weekend: a recovery through the entire order to finish eighth, salvaging four points from a session that could have buried his title challenge.
“I didn’t expect to win,” Lacorte admitted afterwards, still processing a result that turned Monza into the best weekend of his career.
Between Slater’s retirement and Ugochukwu’s recovery, the gap at the top of F3 fell from seventeen points to fifteen. Not the swing Ugochukwu needed, but enough to keep his hopes alive.
Madrid awaits
This weekend saw Monza do what it does best: refuse to let the dust, or the championship battles, settle. F2’s fight, which looked like a foregone conclusion on Saturday morning, is now within reach for Câmara. F3’s, which Slater had started to pull away with, is a little closer than it was a week ago. Neither will be decided until Madrid hosts both series’ season finales on 11–13 September, with F3 running two feature races to close out its year.
One circuit. Four races. Two title fights rewritten in the space of a single weekend. That is Monza’s gift to F2 and F3 drivers, and it is why nobody arrives at the Temple of Speed expecting the championship table to look the same on Monday morning as it did on Friday.
Feature Image: https://feederseries.net
Edited by Reo Lane.
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