{"id":6469,"date":"2023-09-03T16:11:07","date_gmt":"2023-09-03T20:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=6469"},"modified":"2023-09-04T16:11:17","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T20:11:17","slug":"crawford-shows-strong-pace-once-again-at-monza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/03\/crawford-shows-strong-pace-once-again-at-monza\/","title":{"rendered":"Crawford Shows Strong Pace once again at Monza"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
Consistently in the mix through the weekend but bad luck and contact prevent points<\/em><\/p>\n

MONZA, Italy (3 September 2023) \u2013 Despite showing strong pace in practice, qualifying and both races at Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Jak Crawford\u2019s Italian Grand Prix didn\u2019t yield the results that the American Formula 1 hopeful had fought for in FIA Formula 2 competition. The visit to the hallowed Italian circuit came just one week after Crawford delivered a break-out weekend at Zandvoort, where he qualified on pole and brought home a Feature Race podium.<\/p>\n

In Sunday\u2019s Feature race, Crawford was once again right in the mix, making a dramatic three-wide pass to capture fifth place with 10 laps remaining. But a cut tire on the following lap saw him fall to 16th.\u00a0 He was able to race forward to up to 13th despite the ill-timed pit stop before wheel-to-wheel contact with two laps remaining resulted in damage that forced him out of the race. He was classified 16th.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Feature Race was very good,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cI made some good overtakes, and we fixed our car from Saturday, and I was quite happy with it up until that point. I think we would have ended up in third, because the car ahead\u00a0 still had to make a pit stop and I was a lot quicker than the driver right ahead of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just defending, and the driver behind me was closing and he decided to go for a move that wasn\u2019t there and I got a puncture. Then, at the end, I got a broken left-rear, and that was that.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Crawford started fourth but lost a position after contact at the start. He was sixth while involved in a spirited battle for position over the closing laps, but was penalized for going wide on the final lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaturday was a bit more of a struggle,\u201d he said. \u201cAttacking and defending is very different at this track than any other race. On the last lap, it was just a mistake on my part and I went off a little too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

For qualifying, Crawfords ability to set a quick time early once again paid dividends as he scored seventh-fastest overall despite not getting to run the final segment of the session.<\/p>\n

Having set the sixth fastest lap early in the qualifying,\u00a0 Crawford encountered problems with an engine fire that prevented him from returning to the fray. Meanwhile, gamesmanship saw most of the other competitors run out of time as they stalled looking for spots in traffic for a fast final lap, with only one driver managing to post a quicker time. Last weekend at Zandvoort, Crawford\u2019s early fast lap was good enough to stand up his first F2 pole as late red flags prevented the competition from gaining ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cQualifying was weird again, getting our best lap on the first run,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cThen we had a fire in the fuel pump, so I was not able to go out again, because it would have been a safety risk. That was unfortunate for me, but luckily nobody else improved, and I only got jumped one spot. At the end of the day, we saved one set of tires.\u201d<\/p>\n

In contention all weekend, Crawford was seventh-fastest in Friday\u2019s lone practice session for Hitech Pulse-Eight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were quick straight away and practice was great,\u201d he said. \u201cI was feeling comfortable and I was happy with the setup from practice, even though we still had a bit of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crawford now gets a two-month break before the 2023 season comes to a close on Nov. 24-25 at Yas Marina Circuit in the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where I did my first F2 test last year, and I\u2019m looking forward to the end of the season,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see what we can do to end it on a high. These past two weekends I thought we\u2019ve done really well in the Feature Race, and I think we deserve another podium in the Feature Race, or even a win. I don\u2019t have any plans for the upcoming weeks at the moment. Maybe I\u2019ll go home for training and relaxing a bit, because the season\u2019s basically over at this point. I\u2019m still undecided on next year\u2019s plans, but I\u2019ll be back in F2.\u201d<\/p>\n

Media Contact:\u00a0<\/strong>media@sundaymanagement.com<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consistently in the mix through the weekend but bad luck and contact prevent points MONZA, Italy (3 September 2023) \u2013 Despite showing strong pace in practice, [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-jak-crawford-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469","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=6469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6471,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469\/revisions\/6471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}