Crawford aiming for Qualifying confirmation as DAMS Lucas Oil look to rebound at Spa

25 July 2024

It was not the first time DAMS Lucas Oil have been left with a fightback on their hands following a difficult Qualifying, but after Budapest, Jak Crawford believes the team is on the right track in rectifying their woes.

The team was left with P19 for Juan Manuel Correa and P22 for Crawford, who didn’t complete a clean lap around the Hungaroring in last Friday’s grid-setting session.

As the paddock prepare for Spa-Francorchamps however, the American says the team has worked hard and believe they have identified the issue that has hampered them in Qualifying sessions throughout 2024.

Most importantly though, he says that the weekend will be vital in terms of a positive Qualifying result to confirm that they have correctly identified the problem area and fixed the issue.

“I think on our side, we know. We want to come here and do a good Qualifying so that we can confirm that we know the problem. If we have another bad Quali then it’ll be a bit scary to be honest, then we really do have a bit of an issue. We know what went wrong, we just hope to confirm that this weekend.”

Crawford managed to rally along with Correa to reach the top 10 in the Budapest Sprint Race, with the latter getting into the points in P8.

Ahead of Round 10 in Belgium, the whole team is aiming to bounce back at the first time of asking and ahead of the summer break.

Crawford is confident that should DAMS have a good Qualifying, their early season struggles will be no more

He believes that the layout of the circuit will play the strengths of the French outfit.

“I feel very good. We’re coming off a bad round, but we’ve had a couple of bad races this year and we’ve always managed to come back and do very well in the next race.

“It’s a very similar track to tracks we’ve done well around like Barcelona, Silverstone and Jeddah. I’m looking forward to it. If it’s cold conditions like Silverstone I think we’ll figure it out. The one thing you can’t predict is the weather, as always here. But this track suits the package we have.

“It’s a very different track to Budapest so I’m looking forward to it. Here in Spa, we have a lot of weather than could happen, a lot of unknowns with the weather and stuff like that. I’m looking forward to it and hopefully it’ll be a good weekend.

While Crawford went scoreless in Budapest, he remains in the title picture, currently eight in the Standings on 84 points but just one result away from major contention he says.

With Championship leader Isack Hadjar on 140, it’s a steep hill to climb but one the DAMS driver believes is possible going forward, starting this weekend at Spa.

“It’s still very close at this point and I think if I was to win a Feature Race that would put me in the top three and then I’d be where I want to be. It’s feels quite early but because it’s close between quite a few of us that any result can bounce you up quite a lot at the moment.

“So, I’m not looking too much into it. I just want to do as good as I can and for us, it starts in Qualifying. That’s what I want to do first.”