MARCUS ARMSTRONG STARTS AS HE MEANS TO CONTINUE

Italian Formula 4 by Abarth:

MARCUS ARMSTRONG STARTS AS HE MEANS TO CONTINUE

A top qualifying performance stood Kiwi racing driver Marcus Armstrong in good stead at the opening round of the FIA Italian Formula 4 Championship, the Christchurch teen guiding his Formula 4 car home to fifth overall in a field of 28 in the first race of his debut season in the fiercely contested single-seater championship and backi8ng that with a podium in the second of three races..

“Not a bad weekend. Was lacking a little bit of lap time compared to the two drivers ahead of me, which made things quite tough, but the first two races were good and clean,” he said.

Armstrong ran in third place for much of race three and seemed set to record another podium position.

“Then Kush Maini tried to overtake me down the inside at one of the hairpins but he had snap oversteer and had nowhere to go but into me. It was a close few laps which I'm looking forward to watching on replay!”

Armstrong is philosophical about the outcome of the third race.

“Ultimately it was quite a good weekend, we have our sights on the championship.”

Championship information

The Italian Formula 4 championship has attracted 28 drivers from 17 different countries racing for 12 teams.

The cars used for the Italian championship all share a common chassis made by Tatuus, the company that supplies the chassis for the cars of the Toyota Racing Series. They run 1.4 litre turbocharged  engines which develop slightly less power than TRS.

Race weekends have the drivers on the circuit for two 40 minute free practice sessions on the Friday, with two 15 minute qualifying sessions on the Saturday morning. The grid for the first race is based on best times from the first qualifying session; for the second race the grid is based on times from session two  and for race three the grid is based on each driver’s second best qualifying time across both sessions.

All three races over the weekend carry points towards the championships, including the overall driver’s title, the rookie trophy, the women’s trophy and the teams’ trophy.





In his debut Formula 4 year, Armstrong competes for outright and rookie trophy points. This weekend’s racing kicks off a busy year for the Christchurch teenager: he is racing in both the Italian and German F4 championships, a total of 14 race weekends between April and October.

The championships:

www.f4championship.com/ (Italy)

www.adac-motorsport.de/adac-formel-4/uk/rennen/ (Germany)

Race 1 top ten

Sebastian Fernandez

Artem Petrov

Juri Vips

Lorenzo Colombo

Marcus Armstrong

Job Van Uitert

Ian Rodriguez

Leonard Hogenboom

Leonardo Lorando

Kami Laliberte

Race 2 top ten

Sebastian Fernandez

Lorenzo Colombo

Marcus Armstrong

Juri Vips

Kami Laliberte

Felipe Drugovich

Job Van Uitert

Enzo Fittipaldi

Lirim Zendeli

Juan Manuel Correa

Race 3 top ten

Sebastian Fernandez

Lorenzo Colombo

Artem Petrov

Felipe Drugovich

Enzo Fittipaldi

Job Van Uitert

Ian Rodriguez

Lirim Zendeli

Kami Laliberte

Aldo Festante

Also

Marcus Armstrong 23rd

Points (top ten) after round one

1 Sebastian Fernandez 75

2 Lorenzo Colombo 48

3 Artem Petrov 33

4 Job Van Uitert 28

5 Juri Vips 27

6 Marcus Armstrong 25

7 Enzo Fittipaldi 21

8 Ian Rodriguez 14

9 Lirim Zendelli 12

10 Aldo Festante 4