Armstrong Lays Down The Hammer To Win Sprint in Styria

Marcus Armstrong dominated Saturday’s Sprint Race in round 8 of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 championship by leading from start to finish at the Red Bull Ring, ahead of Théo Pourchaire and Jack Doohan.

It marks the Kiwi driver’s second win of the season, with the first coming in the Imola Sprint Race earlier in the season.

Championship leader Felipe Drugovich kept up with his consistent results this season in fourth place with Juri Vips rounding out the top five.

With Armstrong starting on reverse grid pole, the Hitech Grand Prix driver got the perfect start when the five lights went out.

He kept Pourchaire behind him as the rest of the grid cleanly navigated themselves through the first few corners.

Just like in Qualifying, track limits played a huge part in the management of the race with the drivers fighting with their Dallara F2/18 to keep it within the confines of the black tarmac on the track.

The Virtual Safety Car was called out on Lap 13 when Carlin’s Liam Lawson came to a halt on the escape road out of turn 3.

The Red Bull junior’s day had already taken a turn for the worst after stalling it on the grid at the beginning of the formation lap.

Racing resumed once Lawson had managed to limp his Carlin car back into the pit-lane and the drivers treaded cautiously around the track to keep themselves from taking a dreaded five-second penalty which could drop them down the order.

Pourchaire teetered on the edge of getting a final violation with it being investigated after the race but was lucky to escape a post-race penalty and kept his podium position in second place.

With another win in F2 under his belt, Armstrong was ecstatic about being back in the post-race press conference after the race, “Good to be back in the press conference room with Tom [Clarkson] and all the rest of them! It was a good race.”

“It was stressful towards the end because I’m not really certain on the track limit rules, so I was just praying that I didn’t run off or do anything silly and just bring it home. It’s good to get it in the pocket.”

POS	NO.	NAME	NAT	TEAM	TIME (28 Laps)
1	7	Marcus Armstrong	NZL	Hitech Grand Prix	36:38.856
2	10	Théo Pourchaire	FRA	ART Grand Prix	+1.098
3	3	Jack Doohan	AUS	Virtuosi Racing	+2.169
4	11	Felipe Drugovich	BRA	MP Motorsport	+5.053
5	8	Jüri Vips	EST	Hitech Grand Prix	+11.972
6	20	Richard Verschoor	NLD	Trident	+14.832
7	6	Logan Sargeant	USA	Carlin	+15.291
8	22	Enzo Fittipaldi	BRA	Charouz Racing System	+17.538
9	1	Dennis Hauger	NOR	PREMA Racing	+19.337
10	17	Ayumu Iwasa	JPN	DAMS	+20.891
11	2	Jehan Daruvala	IND	PREMA Racing	+21.644
12	9	Frederik Vesti	DNK	ART Grand Prix	+22.036
13	16	Roy Nissany	ISR	DAMS	+31.700
14	21	Calan Williams	AUS	Trident	+34.565
15	12	Clément Novalak	FRA	MP Motorsport	+38.673
16	24	Jake Hughes	GBR	Van Amersfoort Racing	+40.245
17	14	Olli Caldwell	GBR	Campos Racing	+53.559
18	25	Amaury Cordeel	BEL	Van Amersfoort Racing	+1:10.121
19	15	Roberto Merhi	ESP	Campos Racing	+2 Laps
20	23	Cem Bölükbasi	TUR	Charouz Racing System	+5 Laps
21	5	Liam Lawson	NZL	Carlin	DNF
22	4	Marino Sato	JPN	Virtuosi Racing	DNF

F2: Spielberg – Sprint Race Classification