How an F2 enigma hopes ‘coming home’ can reopen doors to F1

Marcus Armstrong took the single-seater world by storm when he burst onto the Formula 1 feeder pyramid in the 2019 FIA Formula 3 championship. The 2017 Italian F4 champion, and runner-up in that year's ADAC F4 series, had finished fifth in the final season of the old FIA European Formula 3 championship won by Mick Schumacher in 2018. Then, following its merger with GP3, Armstrong finished second in his first year with the idiosyncratic Pirelli tyres in 2019 behind only Prema team-mate Robert Shwartzman.

The Ferrari-backed Kiwi moved straight up to FIA Formula 2 the following season, taking a seat with ART Grand Prix to contest that championship in what many believed would be a charge to F1. But despite taking two podiums in as many rounds at the Red Bull Ring to kick off the 2020 season, finishing second on his debut, the 21-year-old’s fortunes soon turned. Without scoring any more points until the eighth round at Mugello, he fell out of the top 10 in the standings, ending up 13th in a disappointing first F2 campaign.

He moved to DAMS for 2021, but things didn’t improve. Plagued by engine issues and the team struggling with the Pirelli tyres in cooler conditions, Armstrong scored points in just seven of the season’s 24 races, leaving him to again finish 13th in the standings.

It wasn’t an entirely bad year, by any means. Armstrong scored his first series win in 2021 when he took the chequered flag first in the opening Jeddah sprint race - a result the 21-year-old believes he “always thought I was capable of doing” in F2. 

“For me, it was not really like an epiphany or anything like that,” Armstrong explains to Autosport. “I always believed that we were capable of winning, it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time and actually having the pace for it. And in Saudi and Abu Dhabi, clearly we did have the speed for it.

“I think that in the future, it's nice to have known that I can do it. To be brutally honest, I thought that I was capable of doing it already.”

Armstrong celebrates victory in Jeddah with DAMS technical director Remi Decorzent, a rare highlight in an inconsistent 2021

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Despite that victory, and a second-place finish in the feature race at Silverstone, it was ultimately not a season that lived up to expectations. He lost a likely win with an engine problem while leading in the second sprint race at Abu Dhabi, but that would have come too late in the season to turn the tide in any case.

“It was not what I wanted, and I had the impression that there wasn't really enough races, so we couldn't really get a rhythm going or anything like that,” Armstrong says of F2's experiment with running three races per weekend, but supporting fewer grands prix weekends - which has been dropped for this year.

“Towards the end of the season, our car was performing quite well. Those hot race weekends, like in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, whenever it was warm, we were generally quite fast. It was just a matter of figuring out those Pirelli tyres, which seemed to be the never-ending story really. The narrative changes, weekend to weekend.

"I need to do this year just for my own sanity, really, because I know that I can do so much better. It's just a case of me being happy with my performance, and that's irrelevant what the F1 paddock thinks" Marcus Armstrong

“Whenever it was cold, they couldn't switch them on. And whenever it was warm, everything sort of came towards us and went away from the others. Certainly, towards the end of the season, we were better, in the Middle East.

“We proved that we can win races. We won that race in Saudi and we should have won that race in Abu Dhabi, if it wasn't for that mechanical failure, unfortunately, which was out of our hands. It would have been a nice send off. But we lacked consistency. Certainly, I lacked consistency. And I think that needs to be rectified this year.”

Two poor seasons on the bounce might have deterred a lesser driver, but a resolute Armstrong is returning to F2 for a third year in 2022, moving to Hitech to work with long-time friend and former mentor Oliver Oakes, the team principal. His team-mate is second year Hitech driver Juri Vips, who beat him to the 2017 ADAC F4 title, the Red Bull Junior also an old friend.

Notably, Armstrong enters the year without support the Ferrari Drivers’ Academy, which he had been a member of since 2017. Though he is reluctant to discuss details, and declines to answer questions about the circumstances surrounding it, a message posted on social media announcing his departure and thanking the team for their support suggests there was no bad blood.

Marcus Armstrong was dropped from the Ferrari junior ranks at the end of last year

Photo by: DAMS

With much-needed and long-overdue winter break with his family in New Zealand behind him, having been unable to visit for the past two years during the pandemic, Armstrong says he's ready to tackle 2022 head-on. He recently returned to the UK to begin preparations with his new Silverstone-based team headquarters, and is delighted to be back at the team where he spent much of his teenage years 'hanging around'.

“Oliver actually brought me over here when I was about 13 or 14 years old,” explains Armstrong. “We got along like a house on fire straight away, and he invited me to live with him and his girlfriend Rebecca in Oxford the following season when I was doing karting. I spent the majority of my young years with them, it was really cool.

“Fast forward five years, now the time is finally right to come home. It's a nice feeling, to be honest, because I've seen how much the team has progressed since the very beginning. I remember when George Russell was there in 2016 [in F3], I used to go and watch his sim sessions, and just sort of hang around annoying all the engineers. Now suddenly I'm driving for them, so it's a nice feeling.”

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When it comes to his future, Armstrong’s plans are less clear, although he's clear that this will be his final year in F2. He toyed with the idea of an IndyCar move, secretly having talks with teams while former flatmate Callum Ilott did the same before the two opened up over a coffee. Ilott will drive for Juncos Hollinger Racing in the American series this season, and Armstrong says he would “love to do it at some point in my life”.

But despite his interest in a US move, where fellow Kiwis Scott Dixon and Scott McLaughlin drive for two of the top outfits in Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske, Armstrong still believes that his life-long dream of an F1 seat could be within his grasp if he has the season he’s hoping for: “If I do what I can do this season, the possibilities are endless, and that's my honest opinion,” he says.

“In saying that, it hasn't been a smooth couple of years. I need to do this year just for my own sanity, really, because I know that I can do so much better. It's just a case of me being happy with my performance, and that's irrelevant what the F1 paddock thinks. I just want to do what I can do, just so I can close the F2 chapter the way I want to, because I don't believe that the last few years have reflected properly my potential.

Armstrong and former flat-mate Ilott, pictured in 2020, were both targeting a move to IndyCar that Ilott has clinched for this year

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

“This time next year, I'd like to be Lewis Hamilton's team-mate, but we all know that's probably not going to happen. I've always had an interest in F1, I love F1, and this has been the goal since I was eight years old. That was sort of my reasoning for coming back and doing another F2 season. I've been racing since I was eight with Formula 1 in mind and it would be a shame to finish the story a year early.

“I'm not giving up on the F1 scene. Like I said, I think that anything is possible, [so I'm] certainly not giving up.”

Armstrong is however a pragmatist and professes to following the fortunes of compatriots Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber in sportscars, the Kiwi pair each taking two wins in the Le Mans 24 Hours and teaming up to claim the spoils together in 2017. 

"Formula 1 to me is not the be all and end all, but it has been my goal since I was eight. I'm gonna do myself a favour and give it my absolute 100% this year and see what I can achieve" Marcus Armstrong

“In saying that, I'm a massive racing fan in general,” Armstrong continues. “I've always had an interest in IndyCar and as well Le Mans. I've always followed the Kiwis who are doing Le Mans and all of this.

“Formula 1 to me is not the be all and end all, but it has been my goal since I was eight. I'm gonna do myself a favour and give it my absolute 100% this year and see what I can achieve.”

Whatever happens this year, Armstrong deserves a race seat next year. Whether it’s in F1, in IndyCar or elsewhere will be defined by how he drives in 2022. But with a new team behind him and the support of his old mentor, driving on the same grid as Lewis Hamilton might not be such a wild dream after all.

Armstrong believes his past two seasons have not reflected his potential

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images