F2 Austria: Armstrong seals lights-to-flag victory in sprint race

The Hitech driver started on pole, getting a good start before taking a commanding lead in Saturday’s sprint race. 

Pourchaire kept the leader in his sights for the whole race, never dropping more than 2s behind, but Armstrong kept consistent pace to take the win. 

He had built a 1.2s lead by lap six, holding off the ART driver through a virtual safety car before extending the gap out front to almost 2s by lap 19. 

Armstrong crossed the line a second ahead of the Frenchman, who faces a post-race investigation for exceeding track limits. 

Pourchaire faced a battle of his own, with Jack Doohan taking third place at Turn 3 on the first lap before setting his sights on second. 

Pourchaire was able to hold off the charging Australian, building the gap to 1.2s, but the Virtuosi driver clawed back time and was just 0.7s behind by the chequered flag. 

Carlin’s Liam Lawson stalled on the grid at the start of the formation lap, forcing him to start the race from the pitlane. 

With Armstrong streaking off from the startline, Doohan closed on Richard Verschoor (Trident), taking the position at Turn 3 before championship leader Felipe Drugovich followed him through. 

Further back, Frederik Vesti moved up to ninth, with Logan Sargeant taking seventh from Amaury Cordeel. 

Verschoor, Vips, Sargeant and Ayumu Iwasa were embroiled in an intense battle for fifth by lap six, with the Hitech man emerging in front to take the place, having started ninth. 

Drugovich remained in Doohan’s DRS zone by lap eight, but a virtual safety car prompted by Lawson stopping at Turn 3 on lap 12 neutralised the field, the Carlin driver crawling back to the pits to retire. 

Pourchaire was shown the black and white flag for track limits on lap 15 while running 1.4s behind the leader, while Doohan had built up 1.9s to Drugovich. 

By lap 19, the gap from Armstrong to Pourchaire was almost 2s, with 1.3s from him to Doohan and another 3s to Drugovich in fourth. 

Four laps later, Doohan was just 0.5s behind the Frenchman, holding his position to the line. 

A late retirement came from Campos Racing sub Roberto Merhi, who replaces Ralph Boschung this weekend while he suffers from neck pain. 

Vips finished in fifth, with Verschoor and Sargeant in sixth and seventh. Iwasa, who faces an investigation for forcing off Sargeant, took eighth, with Enzo Fittipaldi and Dennis Hauger rounding of the top ten. 

Feature race polesitter Vesti was handed a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits after having been shown the black and white flag on lap nine. He would have finished ninth, but dropped to 12th with his penalty. 

F2 Austria - Race 1 results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Gap
1	7	Marcus Armstrong	HitechGP
2	10	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	1.000
3	3	Jack Doohan	UNI-Virtuosi	2.100
4	11	Felipe Drugovich	MP Motorsport	5.000
5	8	Jüri Vips	HitechGP	11.900
6	20	Richard Verschoor	Trident	14.800
7	6	Logan Sargeant	Carlin	15.200
8	17	Ayumu Iwasa	DAMS	15.800
9	22	Enzo Fittipaldi	Charouz Racing System	17.500
10	1	Dennis Hauger	Prema Powerteam	19.300
11	2	Jehan Daruvala	Prema Powerteam	21.600
12	9	Frederik Vesti	ART Grand Prix	22.000
13	16	Roy Nissany	DAMS	31.700
14	21	Calan Williams	Trident	34.500
15	12	Clement Novalak	MP Motorsport	38.600
16	25	Amaury Cordeel	Van Amersfoort Racing	40.100
17	24	Jake Hughes	Van Amersfoort Racing	40.200
18	14	Olli Caldwell	Campos Racing	53.500
19	15	Roberto Merhi	Campos Racing
	23	Cem Bolukbasi	Charouz Racing System
	5	Liam Lawson	Carlin
	4	Marino Sato	UNI-Virtuosi
View full results