Marcus Armstrong is clear that Road America’s scorching conditions will “expose weaknesses”

Meyer Shank Racing driver Marcus Armstrong recently took part in the qualifying session held at Road America. He spoke about how the changing track conditions will "expose weaknesses".

The 24-year-old drives the #66 Meyer Shank Racing car powered by Honda. During the qualifying session on Saturday, he put in a lap of 1:45:2288 on the 220.77-mile track. The driver, however, believes that the changing track conditions will help the good drivers and cars stand out.

While in conversation with Eric Smith about the temperature at the track, Marcus Armstrong said, (via IndyCar.com)

"It just exposes weaknesses within the car and the driver.”

The temperatures over the weekend seemed to have risen significantly, as during the practice session held on Friday, the track temperature was in the 80s. During the qualifying session on Saturday, the temperatures went up as high as the 90s. These conditions are likely to persist for the main race on Sunday as well. This change will bring various strategies into play, along with the presentation of great skill by the driver to preserve the tires.

As for Marcus Armstrong's season so far, it is off to a decent start as the 24-year-old driver qualified in 7th place at the Thermal Club Grand Prix held on March 23. He finished the race in the same place. During the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix held on June 1, he qualified in 9th place and finished the race in 6th place.

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Marcus Armstrong claims Ferrari F1 training 'ruined' his enjoyment of driving

Meyer Shank Racing driver Marcus Armstrong spoke about his Formula One development driver days with the Ferrari Academy. He spoke about how he rarely enters 'flow state' while driving.

The youngster had joined the academy in 2017, and he took part in the various tests held at the Ferrari headquarters. However, the driver was unsure about his future with the team and left the team back in 2020.

While talking to fellow racer Conor Daly on his podcast SpeedStreet, Marcus Armstrong elaborated on how his work as a Ferrari development driver has affected his flow state and reduced it due to the simulator work. He said,

"What I used to do on the simulator in Ferrari, that kind of ruined my, just instinctual and intuitive feeling of being in the zone and being in flow state because...I used to spend between 100 and 130 days on the sim doing development work," he said. [1:04:45 onwards]

He further added how the team would change tiny details during the blind tests and how he felt responsible for giving better technical feedback.

"It's all blind tests, everything is a blind test. You never really know what you're doing and you need to be always thinking about what you have underneath you, and ultimately, you don't really rely on your feeling anymore. You're always thinking. You're inside your head thinking about what you feel inside the car in order to give good feedback on what the engineers are testing. So I feel like that sort of ruins the, being in the zone and enjoying driving...Now it's easy for me to. I don't want to sound too cocky, but it's easy for me to drive the car and now I'm just immediately starting to think 'What can we do better? What can we do better from a technical point of view? What's happening underneath me?' That sort of takes away the flow state," he added.

After parting ways with Ferrari, Marcus Armstrong joined IndyCar in 2023 with Chip Ganassi Racing and raced with the team for two years before switching to his current team, Meyer Shank Racing.