{"id":7510,"date":"2024-09-01T18:03:52","date_gmt":"2024-09-01T22:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=7510"},"modified":"2024-09-01T18:03:52","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T22:03:52","slug":"crawford-rebounds-from-unlucky-qualifying-to-take-two-points-paying-finishes-at-monza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/01\/crawford-rebounds-from-unlucky-qualifying-to-take-two-points-paying-finishes-at-monza\/","title":{"rendered":"Crawford rebounds from unlucky qualifying to take two points-paying finishes at Monza"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONZA, Italy (1 Sept. 2024) \u2013 Jak Crawford rebounded from an unlucky qualifying session to score a pair of points-paying finishes as the FIA Formula 2 Championship resumed at Monza following the summer break.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old American Formula 1 prospect made big progress in both races, finishing sixth in Saturday\u2019s Sprint Race after starting 13th, and then racing his way forward to take ninth in Sunday\u2019s Feature Race after being gridded 14th in the DAMS Lucas Oil entry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pleased to score points in both races across the weekend and happy we could turn it around after a tricky Friday,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cThe race pace was strong again on Saturday, allowing me to battle my way up to P6. On Sunday, we got unlucky pitting a lap before the Safety Car, meaning we lost a handful of places, but P9 was still a respectable result with a car that wasn\u2019t nearly as good as Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s 30-minute qualifying was marred by a pair of red flags that negated his early laps and left him without a representative time. The session resumed with six minutes remaining, and Crawford managed to record a best time of 1:32.780-seconds in the final minute that put him 14th after he scored the fastest time in the final sector on his last lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just not very fast in qualifying, and the circumstances made it even more difficult to set up the car right,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just missed on the car setup, and it was quite tricky for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gridded 13th\u00a0for the 21-lap Sprint Race, Crawford gained two positions at the start before being slowed by a safety car for a Lap 1 incident. When racing resumed, he quickly began picking off positions to move into the top 10. He took eighth with two laps remaining, took another position on the next lap, and sprinted to sixth at the checkered flag \u2013 taking the position by 0.101-seconds, just ahead of a dead-heat finish for seventh.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was lots of fun,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cWe made some good improvements on the car, and it was very positive. I was very fast and had a very fun race. At the end, I had a great final lap and I finished P6, a very good result, and I was happy with the race. It was an exciting race, from start to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s 30-lap Feature Race saw Crawford avoid chaos at the start to move from 14th\u00a0to seventh in the first turn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the perfect start,\u201d he said. \u201cEverything just opened up for me, and I was able to keep my car in a good place all the time. I felt like I was always in the right place at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaining two positions after the safety car restart, he moved to fifth on lap six when mandatory pit stops began. Crawford joined the top-five in pitting for their tire change on lap seven, returning to the track in 16th. Unfortunately, another full-course caution waved on the following lap, with most of the cars in front able to stop and come out of the pits ahead of the former lead pack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was very unfortunate timing,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it stayed out one lap later, I could have been up with the leaders. But at the end of the day, that\u2019s part of racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

F2 returns to action in two weeks at Baku for races on Sept. 14-15. Then, there\u2019s another break before the season ends with back-to-back events at Lusail in Qatar and Yas Island in United Arar Emirates on the first two weekend in December.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited for Baku,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cAnything can happen there, similar to Monza. You\u2019ve got to keep your nose clean and have good straight-line speed. I\u2019m happy to be back on a street circuit, and I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONZA, Italy (1 Sept. 2024) \u2013 Jak Crawford rebounded from an unlucky qualifying session to score a pair of points-paying finishes as the FIA Formula 2 [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7510","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\/7510","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=7510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7512,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7510\/revisions\/7512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}