{"id":261698,"date":"2026-05-07T07:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/261698\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T07:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:48:17","slug":"the-similarities-and-differences-between-tsolov-and-minis-miami-victories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/261698\/","title":{"rendered":"The similarities and differences between Tsolov and Min\u00ec\u2019s Miami victories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 2\u2019s first ever visit to Miami was one to remember with two thoroughly entertaining races that went down to the wire.<\/p>\n

Nikola Tsolov beat Laurens van Hoepen and Alexander Dunne in a run to the chequered flag in the Sprint, while Gabriele Min\u00ec secured victory in the Feature Race following a late battle with Dino Beganovic and Rafael C\u00e2mara.<\/p>\n

Two different types of races, but there were also some similarities in how the winners approached them. Let\u2019s recap the weekend to find out how\u2026<\/p>\n

WEATHER CONDITIONS AND TYRE MANAGEMENT<\/p>\n

The first notable difference between the two races were the weather conditions.<\/p>\n

In the Sprint, it was incredibly hot, while in the Feature Race, it rained heavily in the morning, and while it eased up, the track was still wet for much of the event.<\/p>\n

\"TsolovTsolov started from reverse grid pole in the Sprint while Min\u00ec won from fourth<\/p>\n

This meant that the drivers had to manage their tyres but in a different way. In the Sprint, they had to save their Mediums to make sure they lasted 23 laps in the sweltering heat \u2013 although Alexander Dunne noted that degradation had not been as high as he had expected.<\/p>\n

In the Feature, with the track drying, and with a mandatory pitstop to consider, overheating was the main source of concern, something Min\u00ec said was a key focus for him in the press conference afterwards.<\/p>\n

This meant that the drivers did not get the same race twice, so a lot of their learnings from the Sprint were not needed in the Feature, especially as they did not use the Supersofts tyre.<\/p>\n

READ MORESTARTING POSITIONS AND APPROACHES<\/p>\n

The second factor that was different is both drivers\u2019 starting positions. Tsolov went from reverse grid pole, while Min\u00ec went from fourth, so their paths to winning were not the same.<\/p>\n

The Campos driver said afterwards: \u201cI was trying to create a gap and maybe take (Van Hoepen) out of my DRS, but it was just really difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

So while Tsolov was ahead for most of the race, the advantage largely went to the drivers behind him, who had three DRS zones they could use to overtake him. At the same time, he was also trying his best to manage his tyres, so as not to drop off at the end.<\/p>\n

\"Min\u00ecMin\u00ec lost out to Beganovic early in the Feature Race<\/p>\n

For Min\u00ec it was different, he was fifth in the early stages after losing out to Beganovic, and he had no DRS to work with. But what was similar between he and Tsolov is that they largely maintained their positions in the first half of the race.<\/p>\n

The MP Motorsport driver said: \u201cIt was a race in two parts. So the first part, I tried to stay on track, not to do any mistakes and see how the pace was. And then the second part, we just tried to gain position and be as quick as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

THE SECOND HALF – TSOLOV<\/p>\n

Min\u00ec\u2019s analysis of it being a race of two halves was spot on, but it was not just true in the Feature, it was also accurate of the Sprint.<\/p>\n

Van Hoepen did not try to overtake Tsolov until Lap 13 of 23, when he used the DRS to get ahead of him going down the back straight.<\/p>\n

The Bulgarian took the lead back on Lap 17, and with the battles going on for third place, it meant he and the TRIDENT driver could pull away and were now in a contest by themselves for the win \u2013 until Dunne closed in on the last lap.<\/p>\n

\"TsolovTsolov was forced to keep van Hoepen behind in the closing stages of the race<\/p>\n

Van Hoepen then bided his time before getting the hurry up from his engineer and he made a move on the penultimate lap, but Tsolov held him off.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman then made a move into Turn 11 on the final lap, but the Campos driver got back ahead on the brakes into Turn 17, with Dunne just behind them.<\/p>\n

READ MORETHE SECOND HALF – MIN\u00cc<\/p>\n

Similarly for Min\u00ec, his race was also won in the closing stages. But unlike Tsolov, he had to come through the field to do so.<\/p>\n

The key moments for the Italian came with his overtakes on Kush Maini and then a bold dive to the inside of Noel Le\u00f3n at Turn 16, all in the final 20 minutes of the race on new Wet tyres.<\/p>\n

This put him in P3 and in prime position to take advantage of what would happen between Beganovic and Rafael C\u00e2mara, with the two Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy members going off track as they battled for the win.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Italian’s late surge saw him take victory in the Feature Race<\/p>\n

What was clear is that Min\u00ec had better tyres at the end than Beganovic and C\u00e2mara, he more grip through the corners and was not sliding that much compared to the front two.<\/p>\n

This is because in the first few racing laps after the pitstops, Min\u00ec managed his tyres well. He was consistently slower than both Beganovic and C\u00e2mara, and at times he was over two seconds off the Invicta Racing driver.<\/p>\n

So while they raced each other, the MP driver kept things under control, and that gave him better performance at the end. In fact, on the last lap when he was ahead of Beganovic, he 0.5s quicker than him, and one second faster than C\u00e2mara.<\/p>\n

It was two different types of races in Miami, but they had one thing in common, and that is the fact that they were full of entertainment featured worthy winners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 2\u2019s first ever visit to Miami was one to remember with two thoroughly entertaining races that went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-261698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}