Hitech Grand Prix’s Marcus Armstrong won his first race of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 season after taking the lead at Turn 1 of the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari and not looking back.
The Kiwi fought off the PREMA Racing duo of Jehan Daruvala and Dennis Hauger who took the second and third place of the podium, respectively.
It was Carlin’s Logan Sargeant who started the race from reverse grid pole position but the American Williams junior found himself kick up some wheelspin on the line which saw him bog down the order into the first chicane.
A Safety Car was brought out on the first lap for David Beckmann who didn’t manage to complete a lap in his first race of the 2022 season after replacing the injured Cem Bölükbasi.
The German spun and MP Motorsport’s Clément Novalak found himself with wing damage after colliding with the stranded Charouz Racing System car.
Armstrong had a strong restart once green flag conditions got back underway, and we were treated to a bit of team-mate rivalry between the two PREMA’s. Daruvala had it all under control however and stayed in front of the young Norwegian.
A Virtual Safety Car was then called out for Campos Racing’s Ralph Boschung after he was forced to pull over due to a technical issue with his car. The race leader found the second restart a bit stressful, but still got the job done.
In the post-race press conference, Armstrong told journalists, “I finally got that race win. It was a tough one, I didn’t have radio for the entire race. The VSC was really difficult, I was having to watch the TV and see when the Safety Car was ending.”
“That was really stressful but luckily, I got away with it. There was a TV when it went green, so perfect. The rest of the race was smooth sailing, but I had a fast Jehan Daruvala following me. It wasn’t that easy.”
Ahead of Sunday’s Feature Race, Daruvala moves himself up to third place in the drivers championship, two points behind Liam Lawson and sixteen behind Felipe Drugovich who is currently leading.
