Crawford disappointed to miss Barcelona podium but momentum continues to build

2 June 2025

Jak Crawford couldn’t quite make the alternative strategy work to his favour in the Barcelona Feature Race, with his late charge coming to an end in fourth.

A Safety Car in the closing stages prevented him from challenging the likes of Richard Verschoor and Sebastián Montoya for third or even second in Sunday’s Feature.

Afterwards, the DAMS Lucas Oil driver reflected on an opportunity that went away from him and the team, but said it had been a fun race making the long first stint on Hard tyres work before unleashing his pace on the red-walled Soft Pirellis.

“Pretty disappointed at the end to not get P2. I think if it stayed green, I would have got Richard that lap and then with Montoya the one without DRS, I could have got him. But that’s how it goes.

“I guess sometimes that’s the risk of not having track position. It was a good race though, I kept a good position at the beginning of the race, had lots of clean air and had really good pace on the Hard. Then also on the Soft coming through the field was lots of fun.”

A pivotal moment came early on in his fight back through the pack following his pitstop, as he came across AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen at Turns 2 and 3.

A big slide for the Paraguayan driver directly ahead of Crawford made for a heart-in-mouth moment, and the Aston Martin Development Driver believes it made a big difference in the end result despite the two avoiding contact.

Crawford opted for the alternative strategy and it almost paid off with a podium

“That moment with Duerksen probably cost me P2 because I lost about two seconds there with his mistake in front of me. The rest of the moves were all pretty calm, nothing crazy and no big dive bombs or anything like that. It was crazy though how much more grip you have, you just drive right by everyone.

“It’s still good to score some good points. It’s pretty fun coming through the field. I came out the pits in ninth or 10th and I fought my way back up to fourth. I was on the opposite end of the luck yesterday, losing out but then today, it was the other way around and the others lost out.”

Fourth place on Sunday moved Crawford back into the top five in the Drivers’ Championship. Now on 73 points, he’s level with Luke Browning though ahead in the order, courtesy of his two victories this year, and just six behind Arvid Lindblad in third.

With the top five in the Championship separated by just 14 points, the title race is hotting up heading into the summer rounds and Crawford is positive about his chances.

The American says that he has been consistently scoring since Round 3 back in Jeddah, and fancies his chances over the upcoming double header of Spielberg and Silverstone in late June and early July.

“We’ve scored the most amount of points ever since Jeddah so it’s been a good couple of races. We’ve gotten consistent points every weekend in the past four or five rounds. So looking ahead to those two tracks, we’re feeling really good.”