Young Kiwi karter Marcus Armstrong has marked himself as one of the Juniors to watch at the first round of this year’s Rotax Max Euro Challenge in Belgium over the weekend.

Though contact put him out of the Junior Pre-Final and meant he had to start the class Final from P31 on the grid the 13-year from Christchurch stormed through the field to end up 17th at the flag.

Not a bad result and one which could have been much better had he finished the Pre-Final where he started – sixth.

The two-time New Zealand Sprint champion certainly had the pace, setting the eighth quickest time in his first free practice session, the fifth fastest time in his second, then the 10th quickest time in his qualifying practice group, ranking him 20th out of the 70-strong field heading into the heats.

In these Armstrong claimed fourth, fifth and sixth placings giving him sixth place on the grid for the Pre-Final behind eventual Pre-Final and Final winner Thomas Preining from Austria, top local driver and one of Armstrong’s teammates in the Dan Holland Racing squad, Max Timmermand, top Dutch driver Richard Verschoor, eventual Final runner-up Dean MacDonald from Great Britain, and Louis-Ferdinand Simmenauer from France.

Starting so far back in the Final didn’t seen to affect Armstrong’s speed either, the young Kiwi, who dominated his class at the most recent round of New Zealand’s Rotax Max Challenge series, setting the seventh quickest time.

Armstrong now returns home to prepare for this year’s Cresswell Electrical New Zealand National Sprint Championship meeting at Blenheim over the Easter weekend and is set to return to Europe to contest the second round of the 2014 Rotax Max Euro Challenge (in Italy) in late May.

In the other classes contested at the opening series round DD2 was won by Jordan Lennox Lamb from Great Britain in a CRG from Jonathan Tonen from Belgium in a Praga, while the premier Rotax Senior Final was won by another British driver, Joseph Riley, from Strawberry Racing/ Tony Kart Guan Yu Zhou.