Crawford pleased with DAMS Lucas Oil’s progress after ending Day one of post-season testing fastest

11 December 2024

Jak Crawford was pleased to see the progress he and DAMS Lucas Oil made on the opening day of running of the Yas Marina post-season test, as their preparations for 2025 begun.

A day after taking part in the Formula 1 young driver’s test with Aston Martin, Crawford was back in the F2 car with DAMS, but it did not get off to the best of starts after a few troubling issues in the morning.

However, he and the team put that to the side in the afternoon and as they day wound down to a close, Crawford went to the top of the timesheets late on with a 1:36.697.

It capped a strong final segment for DAMS as his 2025 teammate Kush Maini finished in P2, 0.146s off Crawford’s time.

Reflecting on the last two days, Crawford said: “I wish I could have just slept in pre-empting the issues, because I feel pain in different areas in my body. In the F1 car, it's a different pain, it's different areas than the F2 cars, but actually, I feel okay.

“But I'm definitely going to have some great sleeps every night. Yesterday was a long day, today was also a long day. I'm sure the next two days are going to be long days. But I guess the aim of the next couple days, is to progress with the car into next year.

Crawford ended Day one post-season testing with the fastest time

“But it was really, really tough today. We had some issues with the car in the morning, so I didn't get to do any representative running and then I went straight into a race run in the afternoon, and then straight from a race run to Qualifying so it was not easy.

“Obviously, I had a good experience from the weekend, but it was also good at the end. I was able to put a good lap together, although my best lap got deleted.

“So actually, my actual best lap on the timing sheets was not great, but my best lap was pretty good. So, yeah, happy with the day and the progress made, I think, from this year.”

When asked what specifically he feels they made progress with on Day 1, Crawford acknowledged that everything could always be improved but highlighted their Qualifying pace as key area of focus.

“The progress for me that that we need to make is in in short run performance, so on Qualifying spec, which has not been an amazing this year,” he said.

Crawford says he and the team will be working to improve their Qualifying pace ahead of the 2025 season

“I think in the long run stuff, we can improve, we can always improve, but obviously we are taking a lot of time with the short run stuff. We can work fast and change things, so, it's not specific set up things, but it's more just about understanding the tyres a bit more.

“It’s about understanding how they work and how they warm up. So that's been our goal today already, which went well. So, we'll try to repeat that and make it better for next two days.”

Talking more about the plan for the final two days of the 2024 season, Crawford added: “The goal is definitely to work on the quali and short run pace, both in the Free Practice on the Medium compound and then as well with the Supersoft for qualifying.

“So, making those two work well and then I think on the last day we'll use the rest for our tyres for long runs for sure, so we'll make it worth it.”