{"id":7091,"date":"2024-05-26T09:20:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-26T13:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=7091"},"modified":"2024-05-28T09:21:55","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T13:21:55","slug":"first-lap-incident-eliminates-crawford-in-tough-monaco-street-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/26\/first-lap-incident-eliminates-crawford-in-tough-monaco-street-race\/","title":{"rendered":"First-lap incident eliminates Crawford in tough Monaco street race"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONACO (26 May 2024) \u2013\u00a0 After a promising run in the Sprint Race, contact on the opening lap of Sunday\u2019s Feature Race in Monte Carlo resulted in a short day for American Jak Crawford in the fifth weekend of the FIA Formula 2 season.<\/p>\n

Qualifying 18th, the Texan managed to avoid three incidents directly in front of him in Saturday\u2019s 30-lap Sprint on the streets of the Principality of Monaco, after he set the fastest lap three different times.<\/p>\n

Sunday, though, he was not as lucky. Moments after lights-out, he was tagged from behind in the hairpin and swerved into a barrier \u2013 ending the race moments after it started.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very disappointing weekend, for sure,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cI was trying to make up some positions at the start of today\u2019s race. I didn\u2019t really what happened, but I obviously got hit, put into the wall and I couldn\u2019t get it restarted. It was in the slowest corner of the year. But it\u2019s part of this race, it\u2019s part of this track. It is what it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sucks, because I think we were really fast. It\u2019s definitely the track that\u2019s the most luck-based. Sure, it\u2019s about being fast, but you have to have good luck, and that didn\u2019t happen in qualifying and the Feature Race. We had really quick pace, and who knows what would have happened in today\u2019s race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crawford showed promise in Thursday\u2019s practice session, run in a gradually increasing rain. The 19-year-old DAMS Lucas Oil driver posted the 10th-fastest lap early in the run, and that time stood for the remainder of practice as conditions deteriorated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was wet, which was quite an experience,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think we nailed the setup initially, but were getting better and better as it went on. It\u2019s unfortunate that the extra rain came, because I thought it would be better on our second run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s qualifying saw better weather, with the field divided into two groups for 15-minute runs on the tight circuit. Running in the second group, Crawford was on the sideline for the incident-free opening session. He was briefly up to third, with a yellow-flag sector negating his first push lap. He was unable to get in another fast lap, putting him ninth in the session and 18th on the grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an unfortunate qualifying session, because we had a red flag early on. We had a miscommunication with the team, and that caused me to miss out on my last two push laps. I wasn\u2019t fully up to speed on my first two laps, and I missed those two extra laps. Unlucky, and we can\u2019t let that happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crawford barely avoided an incident at the start of Saturday\u2019s Sprint Race that brought out an early safety car.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt got a bit crowded, and I had some contact on my front wing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He avoided another incident 10 laps later that brought out a virtual safety car, and was 16th at the restart. From that point, he set the best lap on the 13th, 15th and 17th laps, moving up to 15th position. Another incident directly in front of Crawford\u2019s blue No. 7 put him 13th with six-laps remaining. That incident, however, brought out a red flag. In F2, teams can work on their cars under stoppage, allowing a few of the competitors in front of Crawford to repair damage while most of the cars \u2013 including Crawford \u2013 switched to the super-soft tire. Crawford managed to hold his position but lost fastest race lap in the closing minutes, taking the checkered flag 13th.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy whole goal was just to drive on my own,\u201d he explained. \u201cI was making gaps and pushing, to see how the car was feeling, to make it good for Sunday. I set fast laps at the same time. In the end, you can\u2019t really pass here, so it was about keeping my nose clean and avoiding some of the chaos. On the red flag, we fixed my front wing and got super-softs, so that evened it out at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dams Lucas Oil team gambled with an alternate strategy on Sunday morning for the Feature, sending Crawford off on super-soft tires. Crawford leaves Monaco tied for 10th in the championship with 32 points.<\/p>\n

Next up is Round 6 in Barcelona on June 22-23.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to Barcelona, because I need to get my season back on track,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a really disappointing last three rounds, and it\u2019s a track that we tested at recently. I\u2019m sure it will be quick, especially in the race. It\u2019s similar to Bahrain; you can race really well around that track, and we have really good race around there. I have no doubt me and the team will be on it, and I\u2019m already looking forward to Barcelona.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u201cIt would have been nice to get a good result before my test next week, but it will be my first time in an F1 car. It will be quite cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONACO (26 May 2024) \u2013\u00a0 After a promising run in the Sprint Race, contact on the opening lap of Sunday\u2019s Feature Race in Monte Carlo resulted [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7091","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\/7091","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=7091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7093,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7091\/revisions\/7093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}