Marcus Armstrong suffers another late gut punch
It is a brutal business. Marcus Armstrong was leading the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America by 2.5 seconds when his No. 66 Honda simply died on the backstretch with less than four laps to go. To watch a victory evaporate like that is one thing, but for Armstrong, it is the second time in five weeks he has had the win snatched away. He ended up finishing 24th in a 25-car field, though the result feels almost irrelevant given the circumstances.
“That was ours to lose,” Armstrong said afterward. After pitting before a caution for the stalled car of Christian Rasmussen, Armstrong had cycled to the lead and looked in total control. Even with Christian Lundgaard hunting him down on fresher Firestone Firehawk tires, the win was his to command. Then came the mechanical failure, leaving the Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian driver with nothing but a bitter sense of deja vu following his Indianapolis 500 disappointment.
It was a difficult day for the team, as Felix Rosenqvist also saw his chances slip away. After taking the lead on Lap 14 and fighting through a pit stop cycle that forced him to restart 11th, Rosenqvist could only recover to eighth. While Lundgaard took the victory for Arrow McLaren, Armstrong is left to search for answers from Honda after an afternoon that was meant to be his.
