Laurens Van Hoepen achieved a third place finish today during the Formula 2 Sprint Race, returning to the podium for the first time in six rounds.

The Dutch driver gained six points and is now ninth in the championship, while Gabriele Mini took the Sprint Race win and closed the gap to championship leader, Nikola Tsolov.

This is his third podium of the season after the Miami Sprint Race back in May where he received a second place finish behind current championship leader, Nikola Tsolov.

After nearly three months without a top finish, how does the Trident driver feel this time around?

“It feels good. I mean it’s been a while since the second one, so to come back after a tough week in Spa was very nice,” the Trident driver said.

The result see’s the Dutchman, who took pole position in Montreal earlier this season, bounce back from a tough run, including a major shunt last week in Spa.

He had an accident on Lap 7 where he crashed into the side barriers. While the car was entirely wrecked, Van Hoepen exited the car with no injuries.

Before last weekend, his best finish aside from his podiums was at the Canadian Sprint Race where he had finished fourth. The Austrian, British and Belgian Grand Prix’s proved to be some of his most difficult races, as his highest race finish was only eighth amongst the 22 drivers.

Bouncing back in Budapest ?

Laurens van Hoepen takes a third podium of the season with a P3 finish in the Sprint after a disappointing Spa weekend ?#F2 #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/W5XSZlAAwy

— Formula 2 (@Formula2) July 25, 2026

Physical resilience is crucial in F2, as the mental side of the sport. With a string of difficult results, it can be hard to stay hopeful for future races.

The Trident driver opened up about this: “It’s tough. We’re quite unlucky with certain things especially the rounds at Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring where there was an issue we had and we couldn’t really find out what it was.

“And then we finally found out what it was and then in Spa we had sensor issues, so it’s been a tough couple of weeks so good to bounce back here.

“My mistake in the Feature Race at Spa didn’t help so that why the mechanics also did a mega job after that incident to be back here and to reward them with a podium. It feels really nice.”

Additional tyre management in Sprint Races is always something to think about for these drivers if they want any chance at picking up extra places.

Van Hoepen started from fifth on Saturday, so landing a podium after so much bad luck is a much needed a positive for both team and driver.

Is it possible there was more in the tyre and he could have achieved more today, or an even better result tomorrow?

“At the beginning, I thought so. I was saving so much at the beginning of the race and I really thought that I would be able to attack at the end of the race.

“But then as soon as you go a bit over the limit of the tyre, you lose a lot of grip so it was really important to stay in the right window because otherwise, it’s really tricky.”

Formula 2 continues tomorrow with the Feature Race at 10:25 local time ahead of the summer break, before starting back up again in Monza in September.

Bagging the points in Budapest… ?#F2 #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/3zXpnyUCTq

— Formula 2 (@Formula2) July 25, 2026

Image Credit – Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty