Dino Beganovic secured pole position for the 11th round of the 2026 Formula 2 season, held at the Madrid circuit in Spain. The DAMS driver took advantage of the final moments of one of the most eventful qualifying sessions in Madrid to set a time of 1min44s331 to claim the top spot for the main race, scheduled for Sunday, his second of the year in the feeder category.
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Second place went to Alexander Dunne, a Rodin Motorsport driver who was 0.230 seconds behind Beganovic. Championship runner-up, Brazilian Rafael Câmara will start third this Sunday with Invicta Racing, sharing the second row with Martinius Stenshorne, fourth with the other Rodin car. The top five group also included Nikola Tsolov, championship leader and Campos Racing driver.
Roman Bilinski, with DAMS equipment, starts sixth, while Laurens van Hoepen from Trident and Noel León from Campos Racing will share the fourth row. Ritomo Miyata, with a Hitech car, starts ninth, and Emmo Fittipaldi, a Brazilian defending AIX Racing, was tenth in qualifying and, due to the grid inversion in the Sprint, will start at the front in the shorter race of the weekend.
The session featured red flags. With six minutes remaining, Kush Maini, who had been struggling with the car, spun and crashed the ART Grand Prix car, at the same time Sebastian Montoya from Prema also hit the wall. After the team recovered the car, the engine presented problems. With 18 minutes left, it was Nico Varrone’s turn to hit the Van Amersfoort car into the wall, causing another stoppage.
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With five minutes to go in the session, John Bennett, with a Trident car, hit the wall while on a fast lap, causing the third red flag of the activity. The session resumed a few minutes later, but still under yellow flag conditions, which changed to green seconds later. With the clock at zero, Colton Herta crashed the Hitech car.
Qualifying, initially scheduled for 10 a.m. Brasília time, was delayed by six minutes to allow the track to be cleared. The session that defined the starting positions also did not include Thai driver Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, who crashed and saw his car catch fire in free practice. ART Grand Prix is working to repair the car for the weekend’s races.
After qualifying, Formula 2 will hold its two races in sequence. The Sprint is scheduled for 9:15 a.m. this Saturday (12), while the main race starts at 6:25 a.m. on Sunday.
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