{"id":3863,"date":"2021-10-27T18:26:37","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T18:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=3863"},"modified":"2021-10-27T18:26:37","modified_gmt":"2021-10-27T18:26:37","slug":"crawford-closes-out-busy-2021-campaign-with-back-to-back-victories-in-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/27\/crawford-closes-out-busy-2021-campaign-with-back-to-back-victories-in-barcelona\/","title":{"rendered":"Crawford closes out busy 2021 campaign with back-to-back victories in Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>BARCELONA, Spain (24 Oct. 2021)<\/strong> \u2013 Young American Formula 1 hopeful Jak Crawford ended his 2021 campaign with a flourish, winning a pair of races on Sunday to end the Euroformula Open season.<\/p>\n

It was the eighth victory in 16 races for the 16-year-old Red Bull Junior team driver from Houston, driving the No. 52 Dallara for Team Motopark. The final weekend boosted him one position to finish third in the final standings, despite sitting out the opening two races due to age restrictions (he turned age 16 in time to compete in the Sunday race), and missing two full weekends due to commitments in the FIA Formula 3 series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy with the whole season,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cI can\u2019t thank Motopark enough for giving me a race-winning car. Obviously, our objective was to win the races today, and see what happened in the points. I think it was a great year despite missing eight races. It\u2019s a shame we didn\u2019t get to race the whole season, but I\u2019m still happy to win races and with what I\u2019ve achieved this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/strong>After setting the fastest lap in practice, Crawford qualified sixth \u2013 missing out on securing the pole for the first time in five attempts this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had an issue with the engine in qualifying,\u201d he said. \u201cBasically, we think there was a sensor that had gone wrong, and it was feeding false information to the engine. We were down on power, and we didn\u2019t quite nail the setup for the conditions. But there was still quite a good recovery! I had the pace all weekend, and we were the ones to beat, although the issues in qualifying set us back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Falling to seventh on the opening lap, he regained sixth on Lap 3 and held that position for the remainder of Saturday\u2019s race. That proved to be critical, as the top six finishers would be inverted for the Sunday morning race.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>\u201cWe knew going in that we would have to finish sixth,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cThat\u2019s what was going to change our weekend, and we ended up with two wins. But in the end, it\u2019s almost a good thing [to finish sixth], because it would have been really hard to overtake and get fastest lap in race two if I had won from pole in race one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top-six inversion put Crawford on the pole for Sunday morning. While he led every lap, he managed to survive final-lap drama when problems with the electronics caused his gearbox to fail exiting the final corner. He held on, although a once-comfortable lead of 1.256-seconds was reduced to a mere 0.168-seconds at the checkered flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t that easy at all,\u201d Crawford said following the race. \u201cI had a really good start. I got the fastest lap at the beginning. But halfway through,\u00a0 I started to suffer with gearbox issues. It was shifting up as I was trying to shift down, and I started to fall back a bit. Then it seemed that the issue was fixed. I was trying really hard to manage it \u2013 staying off the curbs and everything.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThen on the final lap, I got the issues really big,\u201d Crawford continued. \u201cOut of the last corner, it went all the way to sixth gear from second. I thought I was going to get beat, but man, I got really lucky!\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning a lap of 1:36.779-seconds on Lap 3 was the fastest lap of race two, good enough to put Crawford on the pole for the final 18-lap event. This time, there was no drama. After briefly going side-by-side with newly crowned champion Cameron Das in Turn 1, Crawford pulled to a one-second lead, and gradually pulled away \u2013 again setting the fastest lap in the process. At the checkered flag, he beat Das by 2.036-seconds in a 1-2 finish for young Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a more simple race,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cI managed to pull a gap early on, and stabilized the gap from there. I think I made one mistake in the race, but overall I think it was a great\u00a0weekend despite the issues in qualifying.<\/p>\n

Next year\u2019s FIA F3 season starts on November 1-3 with official post-season testing in Valencia, Spain.\u00a0 While Jak\u2019s 2022 plans are set, the official announcements will not be made till later.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2021 season is over and I am excited for next season,\u201d said Crawford.\u00a0 \u201cIt is clear I have to step up my F3 game next year but the expectations are not just part of the programs I am in, they are also my own expectations.\u00a0 I will use the off-season to reflect and prepare and we will be ready when racing starts in 2022. \u00a0Every new year is a bigger year.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the test, Crawford hopes to be back home in Texas in early November after a karting race in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been awhile since I\u2019ve spent a lot of time at home,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve only been back for a couple of weeks at a time. I\u2019m excited to get back and be able to relax, because it won\u2019t be long before next year\u2019s season gets started.\u201d<\/p>\n

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BARCELONA, Spain (24 Oct. 2021) \u2013 Young American Formula 1 hopeful Jak Crawford ended his 2021 campaign with a flourish, winning a pair of races on [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jak-crawford-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3863"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3869,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863\/revisions\/3869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}