DAMS’ Marcus Armstrong clinched a long-awaited and well-deserved first FIA Formula 2 Championship victory in Sprint Race 1, beating Hitech Grand Prix pairing Liam Lawson and Jüri Vips in an enthralling opening race at Jeddah.
“It feels fantastic because it’s been sort of a tough 18 months in general so to finally get a trophy, let alone a first place one, it feels good definitely,” commented Armstrong. “Also to see the smiles on a lot of my engineers’ faces, and my mechanics as well, it’s a great reward for a lot of work that hasn’t really been rewarded so far this season.
“Again, I’m feeling over the world, but I know that yet again in about four hours time I’ll be back on track for another race so we can’t really linger on the enjoyment, we need to crack on and get straight back into it.”
Since starting his F2 career off with two podiums in the opening two rounds of 2020, the 2019 Formula 3 vice-champion has only taken one more top-three finish, with a switch to DAMS failing to re-ignite his fortunes, but the Kiwi looked rejuvenated in Saudi Arabia as a lightning getaway saw him pass reverse polesitter Lawson on Lap 1.
“I wasn’t expecting to outdo Liam the way I did, just due to the fact the left-hand side of the track is quite dirty because no other cars have ever raced here,” said Armstrong. “So it was very dirty, there wasn’t any rubber laid down as opposed to the other side of the track being a bit more rubbered in.
“As well I think we were lucky not to make contact at Turn 1 because I’m sure he was on the limit of the grip on the breaking and I certainly was as well. Two Kiwis going wheel to wheel at Turn 1, it was getting dicey but it was cool.”
The Kiwi duo ended the race in first and second, with Lawson followed by his Hitech teammate Vips in third. Felipe Drugovich finished fourth ahead of Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala, who enjoyed a superb afternoon, climbing an impressive six spots for P5.
“He’s not wrong, it was pretty close,” said Lawson! “The start wasn’t so good for us. Honestly, it wasn’t a bad start, the initial launch was good and then I just got a little bit of wheel spin. I went to close the door and there was a point where I thought I could do it but I didn’t want to get a puncture or have contact before Turn 1 that early in the race.
“So I gave some space, saw the huge dust cloud come up from Marcus’ car on the inside and then into Turn 1 tried to stay next to Marcus. But he ended up cutting through and again, I played it a little bit safe, I could have kept going and stayed in front, but I gave the position back not to risk any penalties and the pushed on.
Robert Shwartzman, Christian Lundgaard and Dan Ticktum took the final points positions, with the latter completing a last-lap overtake of Championship leader Oscar Piastri. The PREMA driver’s primary title rival, Guanyu Zhou, suffered a race to forget, spinning in the early stage and ending up 17th.
Despite finishing out of the points, Piastri and Zhou retain first and second in the Drivers’ Championship, with 182 and 142 points, but Shwartzman is now just one behind the UNI-Virtuosi driver in third. Ticktum is fourth with 130 points and Pourchaire fifth with 130.
PREMA are top of the Teams’ title battle with 323 points, ahead of Carlin on 232 and UNI-Virtuosi on 209. Hitech Grand Prix are fourth with 204 points and ART Grand Prix are fifth with 165.
Bent Viscaal’s reward for making up four places will be a spot at the front of the reverse grid for Sprint Race 2, with the Trident driver set to start in first ahead of Piastri. Action will get underway at 9.40pm local time.
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