Marcus Armstrong and PREMA Theodore Racing experienced a positive day at Zandvoort, as the FIA Formula 3 European Championship lined-up on the Dutch seaside track near Amsterdam for round 4 of 2018.
The team, entering the weekend as the leading force in the championship, performed well since practice and quickly showed good pace. What happened in Qualifying 1 then confirmed the great potential available, providing plenty of excitement.
Chinese racer Guanyu Zhou posted a superb late flying lap to secure pole for race 1, topping three of his team-mates with the Prema banner monopolizing the two front rows of the grid. The Ferrari Driver Academy graduate later grabbed two valuable starting spots for race 2 and 3 with a 6th and 4th positions respectively.
Armstrong will start race one from grid 4, race two from grid 5 and the final race of the weekend from grid 23.
“First day in the dry in Zandvoort,” commented Armstrong. “It’s a pretty cool track, very demanding, and we were fast straight away, I was really happy. In Q1 we were close, but not close enough. In the last session, the clutch was slipping, but issues of this kind can happen and we will bounce back strong. Apart from that, the car feels very nice to drive around here…”
Estonian Ralf Aron kept his name at the top end of the charts with P2 for race 1 and 2. Unfortunately, he was hampered by traffic and yellow flags while trying to set a good second-fastest lap, which resulted in a 16th place for race 3. Mick Schumacher and Marcus Armstrong followed the same fate.
The German ended up third in qualifying 1 and then did it all again to set the third fastest lap overall in qualifying 2. His second-best lap saw him relegated to P17 for race 3. The New Zealander took fourth place in qualifying 1, while in the second session he scored the 5th place for race 2. He was forced to content with a 23rd place for race 3, suffering for a clutch issue that the team is currently investigating. Last but not least, Russian Robert Shwartzman took seventh place for race 1 before ending up 10th and 12th respectively in qualifying 2.
Daniel Ticktum (Motopark) added two further FIA Formula 3 European Championship pole positions to his tally, bringing his total of fastest qualifying times to five. He will start from pole position for races two and three.
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