F2 Austria: Armstrong wins sprint race from Pourchaire

Hitech's Armstrong 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 two seconds 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 two seconds by lap 19.

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

However, Pourchaire was later cleared of any wrongdoing as his third track limits violation was accidentally registered twice.

A statement read: "Having considered the matter extensively, the Stewards determined that the third track limit violation of the driver was inadvertently displayed twice on the messaging screen, bringing the total count to four, but in fact the driver had only left the track on three occasions."

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.

He was able to hold off the charging Doohan, 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.

Liam Lawson, Carlin (Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool)

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 two seconds, 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 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: Full sprint race results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Gap
1	Marcus Armstrong	HitechGP	28
2	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	28	1.000
3	Jack Doohan	UNI-Virtuosi	28	2.100
4	Felipe Drugovich	MP Motorsport	28	5.000
5	Jüri Vips	HitechGP	28	11.900
6	Richard Verschoor	Trident	28	14.800
7	Logan Sargeant	Carlin	28	15.200
8	Ayumu Iwasa	DAMS	28	15.800
9	Enzo Fittipaldi	Charouz Racing System	28	17.500
10	Dennis Hauger	Prema Powerteam	28	19.300
11	Jehan Daruvala	Prema Powerteam	28	21.600
12	Frederik Vesti	ART Grand Prix	28	22.000
13	Roy Nissany	DAMS	28	31.700
14	Calan Williams	Trident	28	34.500
15	Clement Novalak	MP Motorsport	28	38.600
16	Amaury Cordeel	Van Amersfoort Racing	28	40.100
17	Jake Hughes	Van Amersfoort Racing	28	40.200
18	Olli Caldwell	Campos Racing	28	53.500
19	Roberto Merhi	Campos Racing	26
	Cem Bolukbasi	Charouz Racing System	23
	Liam Lawson	Carlin	11
	Marino Sato	UNI-Virtuosi	2
View full results