Armstrong wins Dan Higgins trophy at Manfeild; Lawson second

Marcus Armstrong won the Dan Higgins Trophy race to close within one point of Toyota Racing Series title rival Liam Lawson with just two races remaining.

The Ferrari junior didn?t put a wheel wrong in the opening race at Mansfield, managing a safety car restart and holding off Lawson to take his fifth win of the season.

Lawson, who started on pole, made a poor start, immediately losing the lead to Armstrong and coming under attack from Lucas Auer off the line. He held onto the position and was able to build a gap to the Austrian as he and Armstrong escaped up the road.

Armstrong had managed to pull away from Lawson when, midway through the race, Petr Ptacek and Kazuto Kotaka collided, prompting a red flag.

Racing resumed with five laps to go, but Lawson was unable to stick with Armstrong on the restart and the Ferrari junior finished over a second ahead of his title rival.

Auer finished third to make it an M2 Competition podium lock out. His points battle with Raoul Hyman ? who was just three points behind Auer at the start of the race ? was helped when Hyman ran slightly wide early in the race, losing positions and dropping out of the top 10. Hyman was able to recover to ninth, but he now lies 16 points behind Auer.

Both are now mathematically out of the overall title fight.

Brendon Leitch made a strong start to climb up to fourth on the opening lap. He held onto the position to finish ahead of Calan Williams and Esteban Muth.

Cameron Das was challenging for fifth early on but fell back to seventh before the chequered flag.

Petru Florescu took eighth, with Hyman and Jackson Walls rounding out the top 10.

Race results (20 laps)