Dennis Hauger gjorde to meget sterke Formel 2-løp i Saudi Arabia etter en litt vanskelig kvalifisering. Les mer i denne pressemeldingen fra Red Bull Junior Team.
Ayumu Iwasa backed up his tough defensive drive to victory in Saturday’s Jeddah Sprint Race with a fine 4th in the Feature Race to take 3rd in the F2 championship chase, just 2 points off the lead.
Fellow Red Bull Juniors Dennis Hauger, Enzo Fittipaldi and Isack Hadjar put in excellent drives after difficulties in Qualifying. Jak Crawford and Zane Maloney were frustrated to miss out on points.
Iwasa working for more
“Yes, this weekend was good in terms of the result but unfortunately through the weekend I didn’t have good speed compared to other teams and cars so I am not really happy about that,” stated the 21-year-old Japanese frankly.
“We need to work on it and we will try to improve our performance together as a team and I will find some improvement on my side. For sure there is a big possibility to be better even from where we are now.”
“I will do my best to improve everything in Melbourne.”
Hauger fought back well
“Overall a good recovery in the races,” stated the 20-year-old Norwegian. “The Qualifying made it difficult which is something we’ll have to work on for Australia.”
“But overall we see the pace is there in the races so just gotta keep on going!”
Fittipaldi with great pace from a poor place
“Today I started P14 and finished P7. It was a very good race,” enthused the 21-year-old Brazilian. “Our pace was very strong, we were one of the fastest cars on track and made some really good overtakes. So we scored some good points.”
“So I am very pleased about this result because we had a difficult start to the weekend, Qualifying was not great so the most important thing was that we showed we had speed and I am very happy about that.”
“It is very clear where we need to maker a step forward and that is Qualifying so a lot of work will be done between now and Australia.”
“Overall I am still very happy about the result from today but now it is time to work very hard and come back strong in Melbourne with a big improvement in Qualifying.”
Hadjar fast in the end
“Again, very disappointing weekend, had no pace whatsoever on short runs, didn’t have any confidence in the car to push,” stated the 18-year-old Frenchman frankly. “Even then I felt like I did a good lap, I didn’t expect such a bad result in Qualifying, P19.”
“Then in the Sprint race, I felt quite fast but had too many laps under Safety Car so it compromised my way up through the field. Made some good moves and pace was promising for the Feature Race.”
“Today we chose to go on the alternative strategy, and it paid off. I didn’t have a good start but felt really quick but Correa ran into me and I had damage on the rear of my car, from there I was just on eggs and couldn’t maximise the stint on medium compound. Then after going really long on these tyres we pitted for softs and nearly got the fastest lap at the end and finished P9.”
“Really frustrating because if we just started in the top 10 we could have aimed for a podium I would say.”
Crawford with pace and positives
“I felt like it was a positive weekend even though we didn’t end up with points or a good result,» explained the 17-year-old American. «I do think it was positive. In Qualifying I did put everything on the line on my last lap. I don’t think we had the best car but I managed to put it in P10 which was perfect to start our race weekend on reverse pole.”
“We were still quite a bit off because I felt like I did quite a good lap in Quali and we are still not there.”
“Going into the races we were quite confident, we had good race pace, Bahrain was quite good but in the Sprint Race we just missed the set-up a bit and it really hurt us in the long run. We weren’t able to fire up the tyres very well and once the race got going, we were all right but I had to push so hard just to stay in DRS it really hurt our race.”
“Starting from pole it was not where we wanted to finish. I think we should have had a better result so that is a shame.”
“In the Feature Race, we had a good stint on the super-soft tyre. But as soon as we went onto the medium tyre we didn’t have a lot of pace until the very end and we got overtaken by everyone on the alternate strategy.”
“We had a lot of positives, it just all needs to come together a little more.”
Maloney putting Jeddah behind him
“This weekend was very tough overall,” stated the 19-year-old Barbadian who battled in both Qualifying and the races after being higher up, 11th, in Free Practice.
“I’m motivated more than ever to turn it around for Australia and I have full confidence that it will be. Now, time to train and be ready for Melbourne.”