Marcus Armstrong will start this week’s FIA Formula 2 Championship Feature Race at the Hungaroring on the front row after a top qualifying performance in Budapest. Fellow Kiwi Liam Lawson continued to struggle in qualifying and will start from 11th position.
Ayumu Iwasa stormed his way to his first pole position in the series. A blisteringly quick 1:27.930 set in the final few minutes of Qualifying allowed him to better his nearest rival Hitech Grand Prix’s Marcus Armstrong by an astonishing 0.381s, while Felipe Drugovich narrowly pipped Théo Pourchaire to third.
“I was actually surprise,” commented Amrstrong. “I didn’t really want to know what the results were until everyone had crossed the line. But when they told me that I was P2 and then they told me that I was P2 by three-tenths, I was quite surprised because I knew that it was quite tight behind and I knew that I could have found one or two tenths in my driving. But you know, three, four tenths is starting to be fantasy so well done to him and he’s obviously done a mega mega job.”
With rain predicted over the weekend Armstrong is pleased to be at the front of the field.
“I was thinking this morning, if there’s ever a time to be on pole, it’s today, because tomorrow is going to be very unpredictable. I mean, at this rate, we probably won’t be racing with five millimetres of rain. So let’s hope it clears up a little bit. And then I hope it clears up enough to do a standing start, because that’s where the fun really is.
“Unfortunately, in the past, we’ve had a few wet races and or a few wet starts at least and we’ve always had to do a rolling start, where I think you know, it’d be quite interesting to do a standing start, if the conditions allow. So that’s my hope for tomorrow. Wet but not too wet and hopefully we can do a standing start.”
Having qualified in tenth, Australian Jack Doohan will start from pole position for the reserve top ten Sprint Race which gets underway at 3:55am Sunday NZ time.
Qualifying results
1/ Ayumu Iwasa 1’27.930
2/ Marcus Armstrong 1’28.311
3/ Felipe Drugovich 1’28.340
4/ Theo Pourchaire 1’28.359
5/ Logan Sargeant 1’28.381
6/ Jüri Vips 1’28.391
7/ Frederik Vesti 1’28.562
8/ Dennis Hauger 1’28.604
9/ Enzo Fittipaldi 1’28.686
10/ Jack Doohan 1’28.691
11/ Liam Lawson 1’28.750
12/ Jehan Daruvala 1’28.786
13/ Olli Caldwell 1’28.803
14/ Richard Verschoor 1’28.849
15/ Marino Sato 1’29.018
16/ Cem Bolukbasi 1’29.102
17/ David Beckmann 1’29.343
18/ Calan Williams 1’29.346
19/ Clement Novalak 1’29.481
20/ Roberto Merhi 1’29.547
21/ Roy Nissany 1’29.606
22/ Amaury Cordeel 1’29.792
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