DAMS Lucas Oil displayed improved qualifying pace during Round 9 of the FIA Formula 3 Championship, although an incredibly bunched field meant the team was unable to score points.

After a solid Free Practice session, the team opted for small set-up alterations ahead of qualifying. However, track conditions changed more than expected, leaving the drivers in 24th, 25th and 26th, with Christian Ho leading Matìas Zagazeta and Nicola Lacorte. Despite this, all three set times that were just six-tenths of a second away from the pole position lap, due to the incredibly tight nature of the session.

In the Sprint Race, Ho made some good moves to take 20th on his first race at the Hungaroring. Zagazeta and Lacorte were battling against one another midway through the event before making contact, which forced Lacorte to retire. Zagazeta was handed a 10-second penalty and was classified 26th.

Although the track started wet for Sunday’s Feature Race, the team expected the surface to dry quickly, so set the car up for slick tyre running. This made it difficult for the drivers in the first half of the race, before finding better pace as the 23-lap event went on. Zagazeta improved to 16th, while Lacorte claimed 18th and Ho 20th.

Formula 3 now heads on to the summer break, before returning on 5-7 September at Monza for the season finale.

Matìas Zagazeta: “It was a difficult weekend, although there are positives to take from the Feature Race in the wet. We made some improvements and we’re now ready to try and finish on a high at Monza.”

Qualifying: 25th | Sprint Race: 26th | Feature Race: 16th

Christian Ho: “It was another disappointing weekend in terms of results. It was nice to learn the track on my first visit to Hungary. Qualifying was unfortunate as we found traffic on our push laps, which cost us plenty of positions in such a tight session. We’ll look to improve over the summer break so we can end the season strongly at Monza.”

Qualifying: 24th | Sprint Race: 20th | Feature Race: 20th

Nicola Lacorte: “Overall we had good pace throughout the weekend but just didn’t maximise our opportunities. Now we head to Monza after the summer break where we’ll look to make the most of our pace at my home event.”

Qualifying: 26th | Sprint Race: DNF | Feature Race: 18th

Charles Pic, Team Owner: “The drivers were happy in Free Practice, so we didn’t make too many changes to the set-up for qualifying. Unfortunately the track conditions changed more than we expected so we had a bit of understeer and some traffic which denied us better starting positions. The speed was good as we weren’t far off the top cars, but the tight field meant we started a long way back. The Sprint Race was frustrating, Christian had more understeer which degraded his tyres, and Matìas and Nicola came together. In Sunday’s Feature, the track was wet and unfortunately we expected the surface to dry quickly and for our drivers to change to slick tyres, so we lacked performance at the start. As the track eventually dried, our pace improved and we were able to set good lap times. It was an event where we learned a lot but made too many mistakes, which is something we’ll look to rectify at the season finale at Monza.”

Image: Dutch Photo Agency