A dominant and well managed drive from Marcus Armstrong saw him take his third Formula 2 race win in Zandvoort alongside Clement Novalak in P2 and Dennis Hauger in P3.
Starting in P2, Armstrong got a much better start off the line than pole sitter Novalak and took the lead of the race into turn 1. The Kiwi ran a seemingly comfortable race in maintaining the lead from lap 1 and having an excellent safety car restart in which he caught Novalak unawares behind. With the difficulties others faced executing an overtake, his better start both off the line and after the safety car were vital to him taking the race win, something he noted later in the post-race press conference.
‘The start was very important, and equally so, the restart at the end. We nailed those two things and here we are…really happy to have won that. It could have gone either way to be fair.’
Marcus Armstrong
Suffering from wheelspin on his getaway from the line, Clement Novalak had the lead of the race taken away by the time he had entered turn 1. The Frenchman immediately had to defend from Juri Vips behind and in doing so hindered the Hitech driver allowing Dennis Hauger to claim P3. On a track that proved difficult to overtake on, and being unable to break the 1s for DRS on Armstrong ahead, Novalak maintained his P2 and sailed to his first podium in Formula 2. Novalak was very honest in the post race press conference about what aspects of the series he has found the most difficult on the journey to his first podium.
‘In Qualifying, I just haven’t managed to put either a full lap together or I’ve been a little bit unlucky with traffic and Red Flags. So I think it’s sort of the biggest thing that’s hindered me the most from getting results this year, but it’s obviously a massive challenge stepping up into F2 as well. So it’s a cool challenge and I’m going to keep working on it.’
Clement Novalak
Dennis Hauger in P3 also breezed along to take his fourth podium in his rookie season of Formula 2. After overtaking Juri Vips on lap one, the PREMA driver ran a confident and mature drive with no real challenges posed by those behind.
‘It was a tough race, just keeping everything together and keeping it clean. Other than that, not too much was happening, so it was just about doing the race and trying to do the job on track.’
Dennis Hauger in the post-race press conference
How the championships stand
Whilst there have been no position changes in the constructors’ championship, it is getting increasingly close at the top. With just five races to go ART Grand Prix are 1st with Carlin four points behind in P2, and MP Motorsport five points behind in P3 – a mere nine points separate the top three constructors leaving it all to play for.
The drivers’ championship has also seen very little movement with the top eight holding on to their positions – most notably Felipe Drugovich has stretched a 46 point advantage over Theo Pourchaire in 2nd. Top five finishes in Saturday’s sprint race saw Juri Vips and Marcus Armstrong move up a place, the stand 9th and 10th respectively. The gap between Armstrong in 10th and Fittipaldi in 6th is just 10 points.