The final race weekend before the summer break brought plenty of drama on the track across all three levels, and some news broke off the track, as Max Verstappen put rumors to rest and confirmed he will be back with Red Bull in 2026. 

Rafael Camara came into the weekend with a shot at becoming the first ever F3 driver to wrap up the championship before the final weekend. He went out in qualifying and secured pole by a miniscule 0.008 seconds over championship rival Mari Boya. Knowing a win on Sunday would secure the title, Camara played the sprint race safe. A number of cars found themselves out in the race, but there was a good race at the front, as Ugo Ugochukwu gave it a good run, but Tasanopol Inthraphuvasak held him off and took the checkered flag. Charlie Wurtz finished third in the sprint.

The featured race started in the wet with it a rolling start, and the track was slippery all race. Brad Benavides found himself in the wall after making contact with Roman Belinski bringing out the first safety car of the day on lap 4. Later on in the race Gerrard Xie was off the track on the inside before rejoining and sliding up the track, taking out Ugochukwu to bring out the second safety car. There was another incident on track later on that saw several cars make contact with each other but somehow all were able to continue down the road and avoided a safety car. 

Ultimately Tuukka Taponen finished third behind Boya, but it was Camara woh crossed the line first, securing the championship with one race weekend to go. That final race weekend on the F3 calendar is Monza September 5-7, where Camara will be able to drive without any championship pressure on him individually, but his Trident team has just a 19 point lead over Campos Racing, who have racers ranked two and three in the championship in Boya and Nikola Tsolov.

The F2 weekend sprint started with Arvid Lindblad and Campos Racing teammate Pepe Marti battling right from lap one. This ultimately led to trouble for Lindblad, as he took far too much out of his tires and started moving back after doing a really good job holding other racers off, but ultimately finished tenth. On the final lap, and the penultimate turn, Marti just did have his wheels ahead of Alex Dunne which allowed him to essentially force him off track without penalty to hold on and take the checkered flag, with Dunne finishing second and Jak Crawford third. 

In the feature race, it was an all Invicta front row with Roman Stanek on poll looking of his third F2 win, but first in which he would hear his country’s national anthem played as he inherited both previous wins after post race penalties. Armoury Cordeel retired due to an engine issue as he began lap 6, the first lap that pit stops are permitted, but a full safety car never came out, instead only a VSC meaning the pit road was closed and those on the softer tire could not get a cheap early stop. Then, on lap 10 another VSC came out as Victor Martins had to retire, but again no pit stops allowed. Ultimately pit stops had to come at full racing speed, and Leonardo Fornaroli, who had gotten by Stanek early on, was given a five second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Despite that penalty, Fornaroli wound up extending his lead out front and securing the victory. Stanek finished second and Crawford got his second third place finish on the weekend. Lindblad again found himself one of the slower cars on the track in the final laps, but put on a masterclass of defending and held off a stack of cars to hold on to sixth place.

There are four race weekend left in the F2 season, with the next coming at Monza starting September 5th, Fornaroli has an 18 point lead over Crawford who is two points ahead of Richard Verschoor who is ten ahead of Luke Browning, a point clear of Dunne. Meanwhile Invicta holds a pretty healthy lead ahead of Campos in the team championship.

F1 looked like it was going to be a McLaren runaway weekend again during the three practices, but qualifying kept things interesting. Yuki Tsunoda found himself out in Q1 while Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton were both eliminated in Q2. While Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both put in solid laps in qualifying, Charles Leclerc put together a special lap and took a somewhat surprising pole position. On race day, Norris looked to make a move on teammate Piastri in turn one, but was unable to get the move done and wound up sliding form third to fifth and George Russell and Fernando Alonso both got by Norris in the first lap. Norris was able to get by Alonso within a few laps, but couldn’t catch Russell.

Norris being somewhat stuck in fourth forced McLaren to rethink strategy and left him out for a long stint to give a one stop race a try. Meanwhile, Piastri boxed before Leclerc to attempt to get the undercut, but was not able to catch him after the first stop. Leclerc was clearly not happy with something on his Ferrari or the strategy as he was regularly on the radio complaining and, after stop two, found himself moving backwards and going from a guy with control out in front of the race to missing the podium all together on lap 62. 

Norris managed to make his tires hold on, but Piastri made a real run and attempted a move late in the race, nearly making contact with Norris, but both managed to avoid contact and Norris stayed out front and took the checkered flag. Pastry came in second with Russell rounding out the podium. F1 now goes into their summer break, with their next race coming in Zandvoort the final weekend of August, as McLaren extend their lead in the constructor’s title even more, but the driver championship now has just nine points separating Piastri at the top from his teammate Norris. 

Reports are that Oscar Piastri set a new track record in SQ3 at Spa, but most fans in the United States had no visual evidence of that happening. See, with about 4 minutes to go in the final qualifying session for the sprint race, ESPN went to commercial. Those who were watching via the stream didn’t get to see the finish. Those watching live on TV got to watch the final lap, but the commentary swapped to the Spanish language stream. 

The big stories coming out of spring qualifying though were the spin from Lewis Hamilton that saw him eliminated in SQ1, and a rough session from Kimi Antonelli that also saw him out in the first session. Once the sprint race started, Max Verstappen immediately took advantage of the low downforce wing he has on his car and jumped ahead of Piastri. Vertappen never looked back as he dominated sectors one and three, making his lead insurmountable despite the McLaren’s being faster in sector two. Ultimately, it was Vertappen on top of the podium in the country of his birth, followed by Piastri and Lando Norris. 

Earlier in the day, F3 had a rather straight forward race that saw Noah Stromsted win the sprint with Ugo Ugochukwu and Charlie Wurtz also making the podium. Straight forward is never used to describe a F2 race, and Saturday was no different. Multiple incidents on the first lap brought out the first safety car, but it was the one that was brought out by Amaury Cordeel making contact and then rolling through the gravel into the barrier on lap 12 that really made it interesting. Much of the midfield boxed for soft tires during the one lap safety car, and their pace was immediately felt. That group made quick work of multiple runners still on medium tires, but Leonardo Fornaroli looked in command of the lead, but Victor Martins and Gabriele Mini were certainly at risk. That risk came to an end though when Sami Meguetounif’s car stopped on track and was unable to get it going again, making the top three Fornaroli-Martins-Mini. 

After the sprint race fun, the F1 qualifying began for the featured race. With rain forecasted for Sunday and the struggles in the wet weather in Silverstone, Verstappen swapped to a rear wing that provided more downforce, which came as a bit of a surprise after the lower downforce wing is what helped lead him to victory in the sprint. Antonelli again found himself out in Q1, making it an incredibly frustrating weekend for the rookie. Meanwhile, Hamilton got himself out of Q1 on his final lap that moved him up to seventh on the timing sheet. When the broadcast got back from commercial though, that had changed. Despite there not being a great angle for it on the broadcast, the stewards determined Hamilton exceeded track limits on turn four and fell to 16th, meaning he did not get out of either Q1 on the weekend. 

Once we reached Q3, the track temperature rose throughout the session leading to the track negatively evolving and few drivers improved on their final lap. This allowed Norris to hold onto pole and Piastri making it a front row lockout for McLaren. One driver who did improve on the final lap was Alex Albon who put together a fantastic final lap and jumped to fifth on the grid.

Come Sunday, the rain did arrive, so much in fact the F3 feature race never officially got started, leaving Rafael Camara 28 points clear at the top of the standings with a race weekend around Hungaroring next weekend and a trip to Monza at the start of September as the only racing left in the F3 calendar for this year. F2 did get going and was relatively straight forward race, at least for a while. Sebastian Montoya spun and stalled on lap 18, bringing out the first and only safety car in the race. Just as we thought the safety car might come in, Oliver Goethe had his engine catch fire, red flagging the race and giving Alex Dunne the win, for a bit. Ultimately Dunne was given a 10 second penalty for failing to engage the start-up procedure, making Arvid Lindblad the winner, for a short time. Lindblad was ultimately found to have issues with tire pressure and was disqualified from the race, making Roman Stanek the official winner. F2 will also be racing next weekend in Budapest, and have four more races after that with Fornaroli holding just a three point lead over Richard Verschoor and only 12 points clear of fifth place. 

The F1 race went for a formation lap behind the safety car before being red flagged and postponed for quite some time. Eventually they got back on the road, but spend the first four laps behind a safety car before a rolling start. There were four cars scheduled to start from pit lane, but it was the McLaren’s up front that everyone was watching. At almost the same spot Verstappen passed Piastri on the first lap of the sprint race, Piastri got by Norris in the feature race. Despite starting in the wet before moving to dry tires not too deep into the race, there weren’t any significant incidents in the race, and McLaren dominated again, with Piastri taking the checkered flag, Norris finished second, and Charles Leclerc rounding out the podium. Piastri now has a 16 point lead in the driver’s standings over Norris while McLaren holds more than double their closest competitor, 516 points to Ferrari’s 248 (both Norris and Piastri alone have more points than Ferrari or any other team).

F1 will be back at it next weekend before the summer break that will see three consecutive weekends without racing.