How an F2 enigma hopes ‘coming home’ can reopen doors to F1
After a disappointing 2021, Marcus Armstrong is returning to FIA Formula 2 for another shot at the title in 2022 with Hitech – this time without the backing of Ferrari. This year, he says, he’s ready to give it his all in a last-shot bid to reach Formula 1
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.
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