{"id":4149,"date":"2022-02-24T00:09:25","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T00:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=4149"},"modified":"2022-02-24T00:09:25","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T00:09:25","slug":"crawford-gets-head-start-on-2022-fia-f3-championship-with-prema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2022\/02\/24\/crawford-gets-head-start-on-2022-fia-f3-championship-with-prema\/","title":{"rendered":"Crawford Gets Head Start on 2022 FIA F3 championship with Prema"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula Regional Winter Asian Series prepares American with new engineer, new car, and new tracks ahead of Bahrain opener next month<\/em><\/p>\n

HOUSTON (22 February 2022)<\/strong> \u2013 In mid-January, 16 year old rising star Jak Crawford entered the F3 Formula Regional Asian Championship (FRAC) for some serious on-track preparation for the upcoming FIA Formula 3 campaign, which will see the Red Bull Junior Team driver return to the category with a new team, the premier Prema Racing team.<\/p>\n

The 5-week F3 FRAC outing, which closed out last weekend, gave Crawford a useful warm up for the 2022 FIA F3 campaign as he built on the working relationship with Prema and gained more experience working with his new engineer. The intensity of the winter championship added several new firsts for Crawford in preparation for his return to FIA F3 competition this year with his new Prema squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely a learning series for me,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cFirst time in the car, first time with the same Prema engineer I will have for F3. It was my fourth different type of car in 14 months, but the first time I have ever had to use a non-pre-loaded clutch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crawford struggled with the clutch with two stalls in Race 1 events, including the very first race of the event.\u00a0 With poor resulting invert positions for the complimentary Race 2 events, the stall put him in a big points hole.\u00a0 Crawford had low confidence in the clutch but there were no more stalls, just a lot of slow starts that prohibited better finishes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just didn\u2019t prepare enough in advance and I didn\u2019t have enough time between the concurrent five week series to figure out the clutch properly and confidently,\u201d said Crawford as he prepared for his return to Italy. \u201cIt was my fault on the starts but we could have prepared better.\u00a0 Results and points just were not our goals before the season started.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the clutch issue left Crawford feeling frustrated over the points that he left on the table, the experience added yet another new chapter in his rapidly growing experiential notebook as he still added multiple podium results to his record.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was quick most of the events with good pace and race craft,\u201d said Crawford about the highlights of the quick season.\u00a0 \u201cWe certainly didn\u2019t nail the car the entire time but I didn\u2019t make a lot of mistakes. We were learning every time out. Prema had a big program for this championship and me and my teammate Paul Aron had different equipment from some of our other teammates who had the Mumbai Falcon cars. I think \u00a0 Paul will be a front runner for FRECA in 2022 and I will be a front runner in FIA F3 in 2022 so I am looking ahead, not behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

If results and points were not the goals before the FRAC season started, what were the main goals for 2022?<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to fight at the front of the FIA F3 grid.\u00a0 That was and is the only goal.\u00a0 We wanted my engineer to try things with me and for me to try things with the car.\u00a0 We wanted to fully know each other and how we work.\u00a0 I think it was very successful from that perspective. We really get on together great so it is going to be a good year.\u00a0 We are ready to proceed to that main goal and it starts this week. Thank goodness we switch out to the superior FIA F3 car which I am really ready for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crawford has travelled from Abu Dhabi back to Italy and the Prema Headquarters where they will take a week to prepare for the FIA F3 official test which will be held from March 2-4 in Bahrain.\u00a0 He is excited to start the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have unfinished business from 2021 but by no means am I the front runner,\u201d said Crawford.\u00a0\u201cI think my teammate, Arthur Leclerc, is the one to beat and will have the most pressure on him, especially after his results in FRAC. He is the lead Prema car for sure.\u00a0 There is a much stronger field than last year with returning drivers in good equipment like Martins, Edgar, Collett, Smolyar, and some new talents.\u00a0 I am still the young 16 year old underdog, nipping on the heels of these guys!\u201d<\/p>\n

Crawford will put his winter experience to work when it counts, in the FIA F3 opener on March 17-19 at the Sakhir Race Track Bahrain.<\/p>\n

Images via Red Bull Content pool<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Formula Regional Winter Asian Series prepares American with new engineer, new car, and new tracks ahead of Bahrain opener next month HOUSTON (22 February 2022) \u2013 [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4149","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\/4149","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=4149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4151,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions\/4151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}