MP Motorsport wereas back and refreshed after a short summer break to compete in round 10 of the 2026 Formula 2 season, where they returned to Italy for the second time this year at the Temple of Speed in Monza.
The team was coming off a fairly good run before the break, where, in Hungary, Gabriele continued to close his gap to the lead of the drivers' championship.
Meanwhile, MP Motorsport entered the weekend sitting P3 in the teams' championship with aspirations to make up more of a deficit for both the drivers' and teams' championships over the Monza weekend.
The drivers got on track for the first time in round 10 at Monza for free practice on Friday.
Despite a red flag that ended the session prematurely, Oliver came out of the session in P2, completing 10 laps of the circuit and posting a fastest time of 1:32.127, only 0.1 seconds slower than the fastest driver of the session, Dunne.
On the other hand, even though he completed the same number of laps as his teammate, Gabriele was disadvantaged by the red flag, as he was not able to find his pace like Oliver and ended up in P14 with a fastest time of 1:32.992.
With qualifying set later in the day, there was an opportunity for Oliver to continue his performance from practice, while allowing room for Gabriele to perform to the best of his abilities to make up for the unfortunate circumstances of the morning session.
Free Practice Results:
Qualifying for Formula 2 went ahead on a Friday afternoon in Monza at the Temple of Speed.
With a slow start, Oliver had a solid first flying lap where he ended up P6, while Gabriele was not too far behind in P9 provisionally.
Continuing, on their second flying lap, both drivers improved, with Gabriele having moved swiftly up to P6 while Oliver moved to P5, although Dunne moved up to P4, which did knock down the two MP Motorsport drivers by a position.
Near the midway point of the session, all the drivers on track were in pursuit of a tow from someone ahead of them. This brought the track to an almost standstill of a crawl, where anticipation for someone to make the first move stretched on until a minute remained in the session.
This enabled one more flying lap. When crossing the line, Oliver came out P9 with his fastest time of 1:32.003, while Gabriele came out of the session P11 with a fastest time of 1:32.071.
Although not the ideal qualifying position overall, the placement set up Oliver for a front-row start in the sprint race.
Qualifying Results:
The MP Motorsport drivers took to the track for the Saturday Sprint race at Monza with Oliver starting on the front row in P2, while Gabriele started in P14 after receiving a three-place grid penalty for impeding Shields in qualifying.
Following the launch, Oliver became bunched amongst the front pack of drivers and fell to P3 behind Inthraphuvasak, but remained in the fight while under pressure from Dürksen behind him. On lap three, Oliver attempted an overtake around the inside of Inthraphuvasak, but was unable to take the position, and in the process fell to P4 before being overtaken by Stenshorne and ended up in P5.
Oliver persisted despite losing his position and reclaimed P4 from Stenshorne on lap 4, and immediately began challenging Dürksen for P3 on the same lap. On lap 5, a safety car came out for Câmara; on the restart on lap 7, Oliver maintained his position and, on the following lap, began to challenge Inthraphuvasak for P3. He attempted an overtake but, in the process, went into the run-off area but remained P4. On the following laps, Oliver battled with Inthraphuvasak but exercised caution, and by lap 11 Stenshorne had caught up and overtook Oliver for P4. Although on the following lap Oliver was able to reclaim the position, and on lap 16 snatched P3 from Stenshorne, he then kept ahead to the flags to finish on the podium.
On the other hand, Gabriele's race occurred in the midfield. The launch did not go the best for Gabriele, and he lost a position and fell to P15. However, he was able to snatch back P14 and overtake Bilinski for it on the following lap. Gabriele did not have much action until Câmara’s incident on lap 5, where Villagómez also fell down the order after being caught up in the incident, which overall benefited Gabriele, promoting him to P11.
Following the safety car's conclusion, Gabriele had a decent restart, and on lap 9 Varrone fell down the leaderboard, which pushed Gabriele up to P9. Unfortunately, on lap 12, Gabriele was overtaken by Van Hoepen and was pushed back to P11 again. He maintained his position until lap 10, when Inthraphuvasak fell down the order, which pushed Gabriele to P10, where he finished the race.
Sprint Race Results:
The drivers took to the track for the final time on Sunday for the Formula 2 feature race.
Oliver started in P8 while Gabriele started in P14 after being given a three-place grid penalty from qualifying, just like in the sprint race.
Oliver started on the supersoft tyres and on the launch he lost two positions and fell down to P10. After a couple of laps, Dürksen pitted early, which promoted Oliver to P9. The following lap started a chain reaction where multiple drivers pitted, which brought Oliver up to P6. On the following ninth lap of the race, Oliver came into the pits and emerged from the pit lane in P14, ahead of his teammate who pitted earlier. Following his pit stop, the next two laps saw Beganovic, Montoya and Maini pit, which brought Oliver up to P11.
Following that, Herta crashed out of the race on lap 12, which brought out a safety car that remained until lap 16. Oliver on the restart battled hard with Stenshorne ahead of him in P10, while he defended from the pressure of Varrone behind him. Varrone overtook Oliver by the end of the lap, which pushed Oliver down to P11. After ten laps of recuperating, Oliver on lap 22 fought with Varrone and reclaimed his P10 position. Varrone fought back aggressively, but Oliver maintained his position and defended well to hold onto P10 to the flags, and after a penalty was distributed to Stenshorne ahead of him, Oliver finished in P9. Oliver had a solid feature race overall and came out with points.
Following Gabriele's race, his race started with him falling down three positions to P17 on the launch but reclaimed P16 from Montoya before the end of the lap. The opening laps saw Gabriele progressively make his way up the leaderboard; first overtaking Villagómez on lap 4 for P15 and then Billinski for P14 on lap 5. Unfortunately, Billinski reclaimed the position the following lap, but after Dürksen pitted, Gabriele was back up to P14.
On lap 8, most of the grid began to pit, which included Gabriele, who came out of the pit lane in P19, but he swiftly made up a position to P18 a lap later. On laps ten to 12, more drivers pitted, which promoted Gabriele to P14. This was followed by the safety car for Herta, in which his DNF promoted Gabriele to P13.
On the restart, Gabriele was under pressure from Van Hoepen, but held his position on track. On the following lap he began to look on the inside of Varrone, but was unable to overtake. This battle persisted to the flags, with Gabriele crossing the line in P13 and after penalties were assigned, P11.
Feature Race Results:
After a tough weekend at Monza, MP Motorsport left round 10 of the 2026 Formula 2 season on some highs and lows.
Oliver was strong all weekend and, with a good performance in free practice and qualifying, was able to secure a podium finish in the sprint race and secure points in the feature race.
Gabriele, on the other hand, had a tough weekend, which was made more difficult after a grid drop penalty was applied to both his races. He came out of the weekend P3 in the championship. He executed to the best of his abilities, but with optimism for the weekend ahead at the new circuit in Madrid.
In a doubleheader of racing, the MP Motorsport team will race again at the new Madring in Spain, on the 11th of September.
Driver Standings After Round 2:
Team Standings:
