Kush Maini takes his first ever pole position in Formula 2 for the Miami Grand Prix. This is his fourth season in the category and is yet to score a point so far this season. He is joined by Rafael Câmara in P2 and Martinius Stenshorne in P3.
Due to the reverse grid, he will start P10 tomorrow for the Sprint Race but will start from the front of the grid on Sunday.
The 30 minutes kicked off for Qualifying with some clean running from each of the drivers and teams. A reminder that today is the first time that Formula 2 cars have ever raced at the Miami International Autodrome.
There is also a necessary pitstop for the drivers on Sunday, having to use supersofts and mediums, so it is no surprise to see lots of drivers testing these compounds during the session.
Championship leader, Nikola Tsolov, started the string of fast laps with a 1:41.987 but was quickly overtaken by the rest of the group, notably with Câmara producing a 1:40.441. Tsolov ended up tenth with a few slips on the track during the session, but will start at the front of the grid for the Sprint Race.
Rafael Villagómez, Dino Beganovic, Nico Varrone, Sebastian Montoya and Mari Boya were some of the first to pit around the halfway mark as drivers like Gabriele Minì, Emerson Fittipaldi and Laurens van Hoepen stayed out since they remained below P14 in the grid.
Ahead of the weekend, CEO Bruno Michel spoke about how much of an impact it is on the feeder series to have a place in America in the 2026 calendar:
“F1 has been developing in America over the past few years. It’s really important that we’re coming here since there are so many drivers and fans, and I’m really happy for them to see what Formula 2 really is.”
With nearly ten minutes left to go in the session, drivers began to take on their final chances of a good lap and beat the time made by Câmara. Lots of the drivers wanted clean air, so it took a few laps to begin putting in some fast pace.
Beganovic started the first challenge to Câmara’s time, just missing his time and achieving second place but was swiftly overtaken by Tsolov, van Hoepen, Varrone and Minì.
Moments later, Alex Dunne landed in P3. Câmara did not let this bother him for long as he pulled himself into P2 just 0.033 seconds behind Maini with a 1:39.888. Not too long after did Stenshorne join him in P2 and P3.
The session was cut short by one minute due to yellow flags being waved. Just after he had put in a brilliant lap, Stenshorne had pulled over to the side of the road with a smoking car.
With no restart, Maini was given pole position for the first ever Formula 2 race held in the United States of America.
Formula 2 continues with the Sprint Race at 10:00 local time on Saturday the 2nd of May and the Feature Race at 12:30 local time on Sunday the 3rd of May.
Image: Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images
