Formula 2: The sprint in Miami was won by Nikola Tsolov.

      It seemed that the Saturday sprint in Formula 2 in Miami was set to go without any major surprises, at least based on its first half. However, the true highlight of the race came in the last five laps, and one can assume that the American audience was able to appreciate what kind of series this is, as it was F2's first appearance in the USA.

      At the start, Nikola Tsolov, who began the race from pole position, maintained his lead, with Lawrence van Hoepen in second place, while the experienced Joshua Duerksen quickly moved up to third, easily overtaking the Argentine Nico Varone, a rookie in the series.

      During the first half of the race, the battle on the track was predominantly positional, with no significant changes in the front rows, except for Oliver Goethe, who dropped out of the top ten despite starting third. Duerksen immediately overtook him, and then the German continued to lose positions.

      Tsolov made a mistake on one of the laps, cutting the chicane, which forced him to let van Hoepen pass, but on the 16th lap, the Bulgarian driver from Campos calmly regained his position with a classic DRS-assisted overtake.

      With five laps to go, he was leading again, the Dutchman was in second, and Duerksen held third, but he was being actively attacked by Alex Dunn, who was so aggressive that it led to mistakes.

      Varone rounded out the top five, while Martinius Stenshorn, Gabriele Minì, and Dino Beganovic were also in contention for points.

      On the 20th lap, Dunn finally managed to overtake Duerksen with a later braking maneuver, while van Hoepen began to pressure Tsolov more aggressively, whose tires were already quite worn, but he continued to skillfully and decisively fend off all attacks. Meanwhile, the Trident team urged their driver to attack his opponent even more aggressively, which he attempted to do, but Tsolov defended himself masterfully, positioning his car perfectly on the track.

      Only on the last lap did Lawrence finally manage to squeeze past his opponent and take the lead, and it seemed he was set to claim his first victory in F2; however, Nikola executed a mind-boggling maneuver to reclaim his position. First, he forced his rival into a mistake, then matched his speed and overtook him in the second-to-last corner!

      The victory in the sprint solidified Tsolov's lead in the championship standings, increasing his gap from Rafael Camara, the Brazilian driver for Invicta Racing, who earned no points today.

      Colton Herta also couldn't achieve this, although he certainly wanted to please the American audience with a good result. On the track, he tried to fight and occasionally drew attention to himself, but he finished only 15th, one position worse than he started. He might be disappointed that he was overtaken by Polish driver Roman Bilinski, another F2 debutant racing for the DAMS team, who started the sprint from a distant 21st position.

      Tomorrow, Kush Maini will start from pole, Tsolov will begin the main race of the weekend from 10th position, but as the sprint showed, the Bulgarian driver knows how to overtake on the winding Miami track, so there is a high likelihood that today's success will give him an additional fighting spirit.

      Results are being prepared…