{"id":6808,"date":"2024-03-03T11:37:49","date_gmt":"2024-03-03T16:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=6808"},"modified":"2024-03-04T11:39:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T16:39:02","slug":"crawford-places-strong-second-in-f2-opening-sprint-race-at-bahrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/03\/crawford-places-strong-second-in-f2-opening-sprint-race-at-bahrain\/","title":{"rendered":"Crawford places strong second in F2 opening Sprint Race at Bahrain"},"content":{"rendered":"

18-year-old Texan ran third for DAMS Lucas Oil in Feature Race before mechanical issue<\/em><\/p>\n

SAKHIR, Bahrain (3 March 2024) \u2013 Jak Crawford opened his second season in the FIA Formula 2 Championship with an impressive second-place finish in Friday\u2019s Sprint Race at the Bahrain International Circuit. It was the sixth-career podium finish for the American Formula 1 hopeful.<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old Texan was racing for the first time with DAMS Lucas Oil, and also driving his inaugural event in the all-new F2 Dallara race car with its distinctive curved rear wing. Following his impressive showing in the Sprint Race, Crawford was running third in Saturday\u2019s Feature Race when his car suddenly quit during a routine pit stop.<\/p>\n

The new Aston Martin Driver Development pilot was impressive in pre-season official testing in Bahrain, running second in the final session at the three-day test. Crawford was sixth-fastest in Thursday morning\u2019s opening practice but didn\u2019t make the most of his first push lap effort in afternoon qualifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had good pace from the start, using our learnings from the test,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cQualifying wasn\u2019t perfect. I made a couple of mistakes and we didn\u2019t quite put it together as a team. However, the second run was decent and we managed to secure P-10 and reverse-grid pole.\u201d<\/p>\n

With F2 inverting the top 10 for the Sprint Race, Crawford started on the pole. Getting a clean start, he led the opening seven laps before falling to second in a spirited battle for the spot before moving into an unchallenged position as he preserved his tires on the final 23 laps on the challenging 3.363-mile circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a positive Sprint Race,\u201d he said. \u201cThe speed was strong and it was great to start the season on the podium. For sure, we wanted to win, but we just didn\u2019t have the pace compared to the winner. I struggled a bit early with the balance. Eventually, I realized I wasn\u2019t going to catch the leader, so then I had to focus on making sure I had enough in the tires to fend off any attack from third. I was trying not to battle too hard, I just tried to keep it cool as much as possible and not push too hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Saturday\u2019s 32-lap Feature, Crawford dove to the inside at lights-out and gained two positions in the first turn. He barely avoided an incident, and was up to seventh when the race was slowed for a safety car intervention.<\/p>\n

He made a pass to get sixth on the ensuing restart, and made passes for positions five and four over the following laps. He took third when a competitor he was pressuring pitted on lap 16. On the following lap, Crawford pitted but his car lost drive and refused to refire \u2013 ending his race. Post race it was discovered the freak culprit being a blown ring in the drive shaft.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a clutch failure at the start of the race, so I was actually doomed to retire once I made my pit stop because my clutch was no longer working,\u201dsaid Crawford. \u201cI had a very good start, but that was actually the end of my race because that\u2019s when my clutch broke. Luckily, I was able to do half the race and show I could fight at the front, but it\u2019s hard not to get the points. We were looking very good at the beginning for another top-three. We know we have good pace and we can take that with us for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n

Having made the rapid acclimation to a new car and a new team with a promising opening weekend, Crawford has his sights on continuing to develop with his new team, Lucas Oil DAMS.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came up to speed really well, and I feel very comfortable with my new team,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cThey have a good understanding of the new car, but still there are so many things to learn. We were definitely up there, and I think we were comfortably a top-three car in both races. Then in the Feature Race I was on for another podium \u2013 just like the Sprint Race \u2013 but I had a clutch failure. In the end, the pace was really good all weekend long, across free practice right through the races.\u201d<\/p>\n

There will be only a few days rest before the next event, set for March 6-8 at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think to start the season is always good to start high, so you are not chasing results throughout the season,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s only the first round \u2013 13 to go – and <\/span>we hope to continue our momentum this weekend,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cIt\u2019s a brand-new car, and the only track we tested at was Bahrain. It will be interesting to see how it will work when we come to a brand-new track. I think we will have a very good package when we arrive at Jeddah on Wednesday.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18-year-old Texan ran third for DAMS Lucas Oil in Feature Race before mechanical issue SAKHIR, Bahrain (3 March 2024) \u2013 Jak Crawford opened his second season [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6808","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\/6808","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=6808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6810,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808\/revisions\/6810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}