Photo: Dutch Photo Agency
Jak Crawford says an engine issue impacted his Formula 2 weekend at Monza, which he ended without scoring points.
The DAMS driver was 11th in a disrupted qualifying session and felt he was already suffering from a lack of straightline speed, which would then get worse during the two races.
“We struggled with engine issues all weekend, and that made for tricky qualifying,” he said. “It was unfortunate with the red flags. We didn’t get to show our pace, even with issues.”
Crawford got up to seventh in the first half of the sprint race, only to then fall back to 16th by the finish. It was a similar story in Sunday’s feature race, where he avoided some of the mid-race chaos to climb to sixth before being relegated to 11th.
“It was a good start, but then my engine kept deteriorating throughout the race,” he said about the sprint race. “That made it pretty tricky to drive in the end. There was nothing I could do. I was missing tons of speed on all the straights.”
He added: “It was the same situation in the feature race. Some good starts, and up in the field on some restarts, and then the engine deteriorating as the race went along. The early yellow right after we pitted was quite unfortunate, because we had a good strategy. But I was lucky to make it up on the next restart. Then we had the same issue with the engine deteriorating that we had in the sprint race.”
DAMS owner Charles Pic confirmed the lack of straightline speed affected Crawford through the weekend.
“Jak had a good start and we decided to pit early,” Pic said about the feature race. “Unfortunately, the safety car came out just after, so others gained an advantage. However, he was able to avoid incidents at the restart and move back into the points, but his recurring straight-line speed issues meant he couldn’t hold on.”
Crawford said his car will be fitted with a new engine for the next races in Baku. With three rounds to go he is now fourth in the championship, 37 points behind Invicta Racing’s championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli.