How to survive the filthy Covid sane and fit and ready to race: New Zealand racing driver Marcus Armstrong has the recipe, though it’s personally tailored to his own racing career.
First, enjoy a well earned break after finishing second in the inaugural FIA Formula 3 Championship.
Then when the Covid clouds gather, sequester yourself at home and use the wind trainer and a road racing Pinarello bike to do your stamina training. Use the gym and the programmes developed for you by Ferrari Driver Academy to stay lean and fit. No race driver wants to bulk up on muscle that isn’t needed. Muscle is heavy.
Use the internet for many things: the iRacing site, where you can spend hours getting your lines right on the F1 circuits that will form the basis of the truncated FIA Formula 2 Championship. Use it also to keep up your theory sessions with the FDA, your motivational sessions and the Italian classes they provide. Use it to stay in touch with the team and with All Road Motorsport, the management/mentoring outfit run by Nicolas Todt (son of the multi-talented Jean Todt). ARM is Charles Leclerc’s management and acts for, or has acted for, a whole stream of Ferrari and other F1 drivers.
Eat right, which isn’t an effort for Marcus. He is a focused, disciplined and determined young bloke and his metabolism burns hard and bright, as do those of most of his rivals including his Maranello housemate and formed Red Bull driver Calum Ilott. Cheeky distracting factoid: this genetically blessed wee brit drags Marcus out most evenings to eat at local trattoria, with no apparent ill effects to the waistlines of either. Ah well, they are young and they work hard.
Marcus headed back to Europe yesterday to prepare for the shortened FIA Formula 2 championship race season. At almost the same time, the FIA and the organisers of the F2 Championship confirmed the slightly weird shaped season he will contest along with 21 other rising stars. The who show starts with two visits to the Spielberg in Austria to race of the Red Bull Ring – which happens to be Marcus’ personal favourite.
So who is Marcus Armstrong? I first met him some years back when he came for a look through the Toyota Racing Series pit garages with his dad Rick. Even in his early teens, in the midst of a burgeoning karting career he was self-assured, focused on motor racing. He was also very clear that meant racing karts for as long as it took, for as much as he could learn. It is a tribute to this guy’s speed but also to Rick’s dedication that Marcus has amassed the long and impressive pile of karting wins and podiums and trophies that he has – both from premier karting events here and from Europe and the USA.
A permitting disaster that curtailed Pedro Piquet’s TRS season the previous year and brought about a ‘no dispensation, no discussion’ stance from the powers-that-be then meant Marcus was ‘too young’ for TRS. The category’s loss was the 86 Championship’s gain, and Marcus would run parts of the next few seasons, often with Nick Cassidy alongside. The 86s even brought Marcus his first ‘tintop’ win, to the obvious delight of Rick in the pit garages. This was the point at which I reckon his raw talent and speed melded and flowed together with his obvious ambition and he really looked like the real deal.
Fast forward to the early years of the decade we are about to depart. I had a bit more to do with Marcus when made the leap straight to single-seaters aged 16. Karting was also happening even then, and he made the Formula Renault world sit up and take notice with some very fast performances at the tail end of their various championships that year. Delighting in the wide sweeping nature of the European circuits, he engaged in some bold and well-judged overtakes around the outside where others would have sworn there was ‘no line’.
Also watching was Marcus Simmonds at Autocar, who said the newsroom at that publication were agreed he was a ‘name to watch’. The global motorsport media began to sit up and take notice. First Brendon Hartley, then Mitch Evans, then Earl Bamber and now this guy.
“What on earth are zey doing down zere?”
Starting into full seasons in Europe the next year, Marcus became a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy, their first Kiwi driver to do so. He is still an FDA driver and I would argue the programme offers far more, in a more supportive environment, than the driver-eat-driver carry-on over at that other one with the ‘energy’ drink backing.
So to the present day: Christchurch born and Auckland based during each race year’s off-season, Marcus will race with the respected ART Grand Prix team in the 2020 FIA F2 Championship season. He says he is honoured to race with such a highly respected team, which was the first to win this series in its GP2 form and is the current defending champion.
ART has been a driving force in GP2 and F2 over the last fifteen years and a lot of F1 drivers have come from the ranks of ART Grand Prix. This is his first season away from the Prema outfit, and he now comes out from under the shadow of Mick Schumacher.
With the champion team behind him, with Christiaan Lundgard in the other ART car with a free hand to challenge Schumacher and the other hopefuls, I’m looking forward to some fireworks this year.
And the car?
Armstrong says the engine’s power and the strength of the carbon brakes are the stand-outs in a fairly technical driving environment. F2 is a good step forward from F3, the cars themselves have much of the technology of their F1 superiors and are capable of 300 km/h on longer straights. Heavier, and with more aerodynamic grip, they demand more of driver and team. Armstrong says he is ready for the challenge, aiming to start on the right footing and build on 2019’s results. The shortened season doesn’t worry him. “It is what it is, and it’s the same for everybody. But it’s definitely time to go racing.”
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