Eight weeks on from its 2026 season opener, Formula 2 returns alongside Formula 1 at this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, the result of a big logistical effort to replace the cancelled Bahrain and Saudi Arabia rounds.
The new rounds have cut the potential gap between rounds one and two from 90 days to 55, as modern F2 races in North America for the very first time in May across Miami and Montreal.
It presents a unique challenge for the drivers and teams, so The Race spoke to two F1 juniors with big F2 title ambitions for this year, to find out how they’ve been preparing for two unexpected new circuits.
The full interviews with long-time Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic and new Mercedes development driver Joshua Duerksen can be heard on the latest episode of the Road To F1 podcast – an exclusive series for The Race Members’ Club. Sign up to hear the full episode.
‘I jumped on the sim straight away’
F2 wasted little time finding a replacement when doubt was cast over the Bahrain/Saudi Arabia events, and joining F1’s support bill in Miami and Montreal became the dominant rumour ahead of its official confirmation on April 9.
That led to some quick work from the drivers and teams who had an unexpected next couple of rounds to prepare for.
“The moment I knew that was happening, I jumped straight away into the sim to drive and to get already a first feeling, a first impression about this track,” Duerksen told The Race.
“So, me and Invicta [his team], we’ve been straight away driving on the sim already, getting some basic information about the track, about the driving, just to have a clearer picture earlier on. So that’s the first thing we did.
“Then I still did my own personal analysis, previous F1 races, qualifyings and how these races develop, where you can overtake or not.
“Just trying to get to know the track as much as I can before I actually arrive there because I feel like this will help me to be one step ahead of the others.”
Duerksen, winner of the Melbourne F2 sprint race earlier this year, has the benefit of working with the Invicta Racing team that took Gabriel Bortoleto and Leonardo Fornaroli to F2 drivers’ championship titles in 2024 and 2025.
Invicta uses the Verstappen.com Racing Pro Simulation facility in the Netherlands, a vital tool for many on the F1 ladder.
While there are so many things you can tweak in a spec series, set-up work pre-weekend is absolutely vital to the success of any F2 team, considering that there’s only one 45-minute practice session before qualifying on Friday – and only usually a few hours to make tweaks to the cars in-between.
“It’s going to be for sure 80%, at least 80%,” Duerksen said when The Race asked how much of the set-up direction is decided before the weekend.
“We have very limited running, very limited time, so we need to make sure we’re ready for the first corner, for the first laps, for the first impressions, because every lap is super valuable now.
“Let’s say we maybe get six, seven laps on free practice, and then we go straight away to quali.
“So you want to maximise these seven laps and have the car already on a nice balance, have the driver with confidence and be prepared to know how he should drive. Most of the work is done behind the scenes.
“When we arrive to the track, it’s going to just be small changes that we will be doing. It’s just basically to adapt the car set-up a bit to my driving or to the race circumstances.
“But there’s not going to be a major change because you cannot risk that. You cannot risk to go from practice to qualifying and doing a big change without knowing really what the effect will be.
“So therefore, the preparation is fundamental for this.”
F1 assistance
Some drivers have benefitted from their close links with F1 teams, such as Beganovic – who has been a member of the Ferrari academy since 2020 and has plenty of real-world test experience too, including practice outings in Bahrain and Austria last year.
That means he already has experience of both upcoming circuits on the simulator, having helped with race preparation for Ferrari’s Miami F1 efforts in 2025.
“I’ve used my knowledge from F1 simulators and F1 talks with engineers trying to get information about this track to help myself, but also help the team,” Beganovic told The Race.
“We done loads actually before it was even confirmed. I did a lot in Montreal, for example, because we spent a lot of time [in Ferrari’s sim this year]. So I’m very happy I did that those days and those hours.
Hear our chat with Beganovic and Duerksen in full on the latest Road to F1 podcast episode, exclusively on The Race Members’ Club
“Miami as well, more last year for the preparation of the Miami [F1] weekend last year. I was a part of it.
“So it feels good to have that before preparing for this event in F2 because it feels like I’ve been there already and that’s kind of the mindset I’m also going into the weekend that I’ve been there already plenty of times, but just in the virtual world.”
What happened in Melbourne
Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov arrives in Miami as F2 championship leader, having taken victory in the Melbourne feature race, on what was only his third weekend in the championship.
That was an impressive start to a season where Tsolov can stake his claim to be the next Red Bull junior promoted to F1 once a vacancy arises.
Beganovic was denied a chance to beat him when his DAMS-run car ground to a halt, having recovered well from a poor start to run just behind Tsolov.
He’d taken his second pole in F2 in Melbourne, picking up where he left off with DAMS.
Beganovic made his F2 debut with the team at the end of 2024, qualifying fourth and earning a podium across two strong weekends.
And while an up-and-down first full season in F2 last year with Hitech left Beganovic seventh in the standings, he already looks like more of a title contender back at DAMS.
“It’s exactly what we all wanted,” Beganovic said of his Melbourne pace.
“We know F2 is a challenging championship and this was honestly the best way we could start the year with pole position and showing great speed in practice as well and then showing great pace in the race as well.
“We know it’s motorsport, some things are just out of your control and also the team’s control.
“So it [the Sunday DNF] happens, but it’s more of a takeaway that we were strong in Melbourne. And we can be confident for the rounds ahead and it gives me a great feeling also with the team.”
Second place instead went the way of fellow Ferrari junior Rafael Camara, who backed up those tipping him to be among the title favourites this year.
Other drivers to watch
Another big Melbourne flashpoint was ex-McLaren-turned-Alpine F1 junior Alex Dunne colliding with his Rodin team-mate Martinius Stenshorne while fighting for the lead in the feature race.
Dunne is carrying a five-place grid penalty for causing that incident into this weekend’s Miami feature race.
He’d picked up 12 penalty points by the end of 2025 (which are wiped at the end of the season, rather than carried over like in F1), so Melbourne continued a frustrating mismatch between Dunne’s blinding raw speed and its conversion into consistent results.
He’ll be looking to set that right in Miami, where IndyCar race winner Colton Herta will be back racing on home soil.
Herta had a steady, solid debut, picking up a seventh-place finish in Melbourne as he continues his adaptation to a very different kind of formula from what he’s used to in IndyCar.
F2 rescheduling these rounds inadvertently means he can’t make a one-off comeback to IndyCar for the Indianapolis 500 at the end of May, as it now clashes with Montreal.
“I had visions in my head of being able to do that, but I kind of always knew it wasn’t going to be able to do it legitimately,” Herta said.
“You miss Carb day [final practice at the Indy 500, which falls on the Friday of Montreal], which is a very important day, and then even if it were to work, I think it’s difficult because for me, F2 is the clear priority. And Cadillac is the clear priority for me this year.
“That [Indy 500] was just going to kind of be a little bit of an added bonus when I had a bit of time off. It wasn’t meant to be this year.”
Check out our preview podcast for F2’s Miami round with Beganovic and Duerksen here