Welcome to Sunday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
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Russell ‘infuriated’ by straight-line issue that leaves him ‘powerless’ (BBC)
”You’re watching (the display) on your steering wheel, just losing speed when you’re full gas in the straight. You feel powerless. So, we don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think it’s the power unit, to be honest. But there’s something slowing us down in the straights. And the team are really, really on it now to try and solve it. Battling against Kimi is very tough in a fair fight. When we are in this situation, it’s impossible.”
Foundation for Saturday (Audi)
Nico Hulkenberg: ”We had gearbox issues from quite early in the session, with the shifts not working properly, and then right after Q2 the team told me to stop the car on track because of a hydraulic problem. It’s disappointing because there are definitely some encouraging signs in the performance, but we haven’t had a clean run on my side of the garage, with technical issues holding us back. We’ll take it on the chin, work through it overnight and try again tomorrow.”
Qualifying Recap (Haas)
‘Ayao Komatsu: ”On the flipside, Esteban (Ocon) wasn’t happy with the car today. He was happy with the car in second practice, so we don’t yet understand why that has happened, and you can see how far away he was. Even though there was an issue with deployment in qualifying as well, so the delta is bigger than it should’ve been, even without that, he wouldn’t have matched Ollie (Bearman)’s time today because he’s not happy with the car. That wasn’t the case yesterday, so we need to look into that.”
SPRINT RACE: Duerksen withstands the pressure to win (Formula 2)
‘Joshua Duerksen claimed victory of the Spa-Francorchamps Sprint Race, holding off Martinius Stenshorne in a last-lap shootout to take his second win of the season. The Invicta Racing driver took the lead halfway through the race, before managing a late Safety Car restart well to come out on top ahead of Stenshorne and DAMS’ Dino Beganovic.’
SPRINT RACE: Nakamura earns maiden F3 win after title rivals Ugochukwu and Slater collide (Formula 3)
‘Jin Nakamura claimed his maiden win in the championship and Hitech’s first of the 2026 campaign, winning the Spa-Francorchamps Sprint Race. The Japanese driver started from the second row but made a great start to take P2, before going on to make one final pass en route to the top step. Rodin Motorsport teammates Brando Badoer and Pedro Clerot completed the podium in second and third.’
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On this day in motorsport
- 35 years ago today Ayrton Senna emerged unscathed when he rolled his McLaren at 180mph in testing at the Hockenheimring
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Social media and links
Russell ‘infuriated’ by straight-line issue that leaves him ‘powerless’ (BBC)
”You’re watching (the display) on your steering wheel, just losing speed when you’re full gas in the straight. You feel powerless. So, we don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think it’s the power unit, to be honest. But there’s something slowing us down in the straights. And the team are really, really on it now to try and solve it. Battling against Kimi is very tough in a fair fight. When we are in this situation, it’s impossible.”
Foundation for Saturday (Audi)
Nico Hulkenberg: ”We had gearbox issues from quite early in the session, with the shifts not working properly, and then right after Q2 the team told me to stop the car on track because of a hydraulic problem. It’s disappointing because there are definitely some encouraging signs in the performance, but we haven’t had a clean run on my side of the garage, with technical issues holding us back. We’ll take it on the chin, work through it overnight and try again tomorrow.”
Qualifying Recap (Haas)
‘Ayao Komatsu: ”On the flipside, Esteban (Ocon) wasn’t happy with the car today. He was happy with the car in second practice, so we don’t yet understand why that has happened, and you can see how far away he was. Even though there was an issue with deployment in qualifying as well, so the delta is bigger than it should’ve been, even without that, he wouldn’t have matched Ollie (Bearman)’s time today because he’s not happy with the car. That wasn’t the case yesterday, so we need to look into that.”
SPRINT RACE: Duerksen withstands the pressure to win (Formula 2)
‘Joshua Duerksen claimed victory of the Spa-Francorchamps Sprint Race, holding off Martinius Stenshorne in a last-lap shootout to take his second win of the season. The Invicta Racing driver took the lead halfway through the race, before managing a late Safety Car restart well to come out on top ahead of Stenshorne and DAMS’ Dino Beganovic.’
SPRINT RACE: Nakamura earns maiden F3 win after title rivals Ugochukwu and Slater collide (Formula 3)
‘Jin Nakamura claimed his maiden win in the championship and Hitech’s first of the 2026 campaign, winning the Spa-Francorchamps Sprint Race. The Japanese driver started from the second row but made a great start to take P2, before going on to make one final pass en route to the top step. Rodin Motorsport teammates Brando Badoer and Pedro Clerot completed the podium in second and third.’
RaceFans always endeavours to credit original sources. Want to share a relevant motorsport link with us? Send it in via the contact form.
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