The Hitech Grand Prix driver took his second series victory on Saturday after taking the lead from Logan Sargeant off the line.
A “stressful” technical issue meant he had no radio link to his engineer throughout the race, forcing him to keep an eye on the TV screens around the circuit as cues instead.
The Kiwi says he was forced to sit in second gear during the VSC as he had “no clue” when the lights would go green, but a well-placed screen as the period ended proved his saving grace.
Armstrong managed to get the jump on a rapid second-placed Jehan Daruvala and went on to take his first victory since Jeddah last year.
He said: “I quite enjoyed it, it was very peaceful. I was alone with my thoughts, so to speak.
“But then again it’s always nice to know the gap behind and what’s happening generally.
“Luckily there’s quite a lot of TVs around the track so I could keep an eye on the TVs when I’m driving, what’s going on.
“I could see that he was never really that close on the TVs so I didn’t stress too much.
“But on the VSC restart, that was quite stressful I must say, because you sort of need your engineer to tell you the virtual safety car is ending, be ready to go, and in this case I had no clue.
“So I was always sitting in second gear ready to go even if the virtual safety car was still going.
“That was stressful, but luckily it went green when there was a TV above, so yeah, quite lucky.”
Marcus Armstrong, Hitech Grand Prix, Ralph Boschung, Campos Racing
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Armstrong, who is currently fifth in the drivers’ standings, said he “thought he’d be in the lead before the first corner” after spotting a fresh set of Pirellis on polesitter Logan Sargeant.
But he bemoaned his start from second on the grid, which he said was “not as clean as I would have liked.”
“I don’t know why Logan started on completely new tyres for the race because normally we warm them up before doing the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Autosport.com – All – Stories…