{"id":7075,"date":"2024-05-20T11:21:56","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T15:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=7075"},"modified":"2024-05-20T11:21:56","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T15:21:56","slug":"crawford-battles-back-for-seventh-place-finish-in-f2-race-at-imola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/20\/crawford-battles-back-for-seventh-place-finish-in-f2-race-at-imola\/","title":{"rendered":"Crawford battles back for seventh-place finish in F2 race at Imola"},"content":{"rendered":"

IMOLA (20\u00a0MAY 2024) \u2013 American F1 prospect Jak Crawford put a sensational finish to a frustrating weekend, battling from a back-row start to finish seventh in Sunday\u2019s feature race in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in FIA Formula 2 Championship at the Imola Circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy with the performance today,\u201d Crawford said following the Feature Race. \u201cWe came back through the field really well to secure some solid points.\u00a0But the weekend was frustrating, actually, because we were pretty fast but had an engine issue in qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting 21st, the DAMS Lucas Oil driver quickly gained four positions on the opening laps, and found himself 15th after his mandatory pit stop and move to medium-compound tires on lap 10. From that point, he worked himself into a three-car battle for 13th, putting pressure on the championship leader and another car.<\/p>\n

Crawford eventually executed two brilliant passes to take 13th with 10 laps remaining. From there he worked himself into the points, gaining positions from the drivers who elected to start the race on super-soft tires making their mandatory pit stops in the closing minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we had a strong car and strategy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were really fast in the Feature Race. I was able to make a couple of great overtakes and work my way up to P7, which I think is a positive finish. It was a definitely a fun race. It was difficult to overtake in the Sprint Race, but in the Feature I was able to deliver myself well to be in a position to pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

The six points earned for seventh position follow his third-consecutive top-10 Feature Race finish. He is now tied for ninth with 32 points, just six points behind fifth position.<\/p>\n

The Texan began the weekend 12th in opening practice, then struggled in qualifying with mechanical issues on a part that the team had no control over, which allowed him to only get one flying lap during the critical session. That put him 21st, on the back row of the grid for both races.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was frustrating to have the engine issue in qualifying,\u201d he said. \u201cI was in the pits for 22 minutes, and It meant I only got one lap at the very end. It was all I could do at that moment, with no experience in a car that was not ready for the first push. I was out of sequence and had a lot of traffic, and the tires were not in the right window,.\u201d<\/p>\n

He managed to avoid a melee at the beginning of Saturday\u2019s 25-lap Sprint Race. Running 17th after the safety car restart, he gained two additional positions in the closing laps to finish 14th.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very difficult to pass,\u201d he admitted of the Sprint Race. \u201cActually, it was a boring one. There was a massive crash at the beginning, and I wasn\u2019t gaining positions. The goal was just to keep the car clean and learn something for the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crawford will get only a few days rest in Italy before on-track activity begins on Thursday on the historic streets of Monte Carlo for next weekend\u2019s Monaco Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely looking forward to Monaco,\u201d he said. \u201cI think our car really suits that track and I performed quite well there last year (qualified seventh and had a podium) and really good speed. Of course it\u2019s all about qualifying there. We need to improve our qualifying. It was difficult to tell how we were at Imola. I think we\u2019re going to have good speed, and I love that track as well. It\u2019s one of my favorite tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following Monaco, Crawford will go to Austria for his first test in a Formula 1 car as part of the Aston Martin Driver Development Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get to try the AMR-22. That will be my first experience. I\u2019m excited \u2013 it will be a good learning experience, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos \u00a9 Dutch Photo Agency<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IMOLA (20\u00a0MAY 2024) \u2013 American F1 prospect Jak Crawford put a sensational finish to a frustrating weekend, battling from a back-row start to finish seventh in [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7076,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7075","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\/7075","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=7075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7077,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7075\/revisions\/7077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}