DAMS Lucas Oil’s strong recent run of results came to an end following a difficult weekend in changeable conditions at Spa-Francorchamps.

Having secured four victories in the past five rounds, the team entered the Belgian event second in the Teams’ Championship. However, a difficult qualifying session for both Jak Crawford and Kush Maini left the pair 14th and 20th on the grid for the two races.

Crawford was involved in an incident at the first corner of the Sprint Race, as he was pushed into the gravel on the exit of La Source. The Aston Martin F1 Reserve and Development Driver then had to battle with a damaged car, driving strongly following a Safety Car period to clinch 10th, just two places from points. Meanwhile, a power issue for Maini meant the Alpine F1 Team Test and Reserve Driver had to pit, putting him two laps down before returning to the track.

Wet weather greeted the drivers for Sunday’s Feature Race, and unfortunately neither could find pace in the tricky conditions. Overheating rear tyres limited performance, with Crawford crossing the line 17th and Maini 20th.

Formula 2 now heads to the Hungaroring in Budapest, Hungary for Round 10 of the campaign, the final event before the summer break.

Jak Crawford: “It was a difficult event for the whole team, Free Practice was promising but qualifying wasn’t so good. We didn’t quite get the set-up right, which was unfortunate as the gaps were really close. In Race 1 I was involved in an incident at the start which damaged the car, but I could still recover to 10th after putting on soft tyres during the Safety Car period. In Race 2 we struggled for pace in the wet, which is something we’ll look into and aim to improve on in Budapest.”

Qualifying: 14th | Sprint Race: 10th | Feature Race: 17th

Kush Maini: “It was a really tough weekend with the weather, and nothing really went our way. We’re confident in ourselves and we’ll keep working hard in Budapest to return to the front.”

Qualifying: 20th | Sprint Race: NC | Feature Race: 20th

Charles Pic, Team Owner: “It was a frustrating weekend for us, we struggled for performance in qualifying and tried an aggressive set-up in the second run which didn’t pay off. Jak was involved in an incident at Turn 1 in the Sprint, but he fought well with a damaged car to take 10th. On Kush’s side, he faced a power issue and was unable to get into a rhythm. Race 2 was wet and we suffered with tyre degradation throughout. The second stint was better, but we were too far back to score points. We need to react to this and work out what happened so we can be more competitive going forwards.”

Image: Dutch Photo Agency