Meyer Shank Racing ace speaks from the heart on the return of his primary sponsor

Meyer Shank Racing driver Marcus Armstrong recently spoke about the return of his primary sponsor, Root Insurance. The sponsor will be spotted on the #66 car at the upcoming ACURA Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 13.

The New Zealander sported the sponsor on his car during his tenure at Chip Ganassi last season. It was with the same sponsor that Armstrong got his first podium at the Detroit Grand Prix.

The Meyer Shank Racing driver discussed his partnership with Root Insurance, saying (via Speedway Digest):

"I’m excited to have Root back as a primary sponsor this year for four races. “I have a great relationship with the team at Root and I’m looking forward to continuing the partnership. Last year I scored my first-ever INDYCAR podium with Root on the car in Detroit and hopefully this year we can add to those results starting with Long Beach.”

Additionally, the sponsorship will be seen at three other Grand Prix races: the Detroit Grand Prix, the Grand Prix of Monterey at Laguna Seca, and the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway. The #66 Meyer Shank Racing car will have Orange and Black livery to represent the brand colors.

Meyer Shank Racing's Marcus Armstrong speaks out on Ferrari F1 training ruining the enjoyment of driving

Marcus Armstrong recently spoke about how being a development driver with Ferrari F1 sucked the joy of driving due to the major focus on the simulator.

Before his IndyCar debut, Armstrong was a Ferrari Academy driver in 2017 and took part in the testing at Fiorano in 2018. However, he left the program because he saw no future with the Marenello-based team.

While in conversation with fellow IndyCar driver Conor Daly on his podcast Speed Street, Armstrong was asked how often he enters a flow state of mind when racing. Armstrong replied [1:04:45 onwards]:

"What I used to do on the simulator in Ferrari, that kind of ruined my 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."

Furthermore, he spoke about how the blind tests don't help as much as he doesn't know what he has underneath him since the engineers kept changing the wind direction, ambient temperature, etc.

"It's all blind tests. 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 rely on your feeling anymore. You're always thinking. You're inside your head thinking about what you feel inside the car to give good feedback on what the engineers are testing. So I feel that ruined being in the zone and enjoying driving. Now it's easy for me to... I don't want to sound cocky, but it's easy for me to drive the car and now I'm starting to think 'What can we do better from a technical point of view?' That sort of takes away the flow state," he added.

In 2023, Armstrong switched to IndyCar with Chip Ganassi Racing and is currently racing with Meyer Shank, which has a technical alliance with his previous team.