Yesterday, the first race of the 9th round of the 2008 GP2 Series Championship, part of the Belgian F1 Grand Prix meeting, took place on the magnificent Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the Ardennes. Both DAMS drivers Kamui Kobayashi and Jérôme d’Ambrosio took on a big challenge in the 26-lap race marked by tricky weather conditions, collisions, penalties and accidents as well as neutralisation periods due to the crashes.
The Belgian started from 21st place, and took advantage of the above-mentioned racing incidents to fight his way back up to 9th place when crossing the final line. Finally, he classified eight after the exclusion of a competitor. He will start from pole position today. Kamui drove a superb race and moved up from 25th to 9th place at the finish.
Eric Boullier, team manager: “Once again our weekend was conditioned by our poor grid places. In free practice in the dry we were very competitive, but it all went south in the wet qualifying session as we respected the yellow flags to the letter of the regs. Our only solution was a very aggressive race. Jerome pole position tomorrow brings our expectation up for scoring points. I’d like to congratulate our drivers and the whole team for the spectacular comebacks they made.”
Jérôme d’Ambrosio21st on the grid, 8th at the finish, 1st on the grid today
“I really wanted to continue in the same vein as in Valencia for my home race. Unfortunately, the difficult conditions in qualifying ruined any hopes I had of a good finish. Today, taking the rain into account the main thing was not to make any mistakes and take advantage of race incidents. I did this successfully as I pulled back 13th places. I’m really happy starting from pole tomorrow in front of my fans.”
Kamui Kobayashi25th on the grid, 9th at the finish, 9th on the grid tomorrow
“We knew that the conditions would be difficult and that anything was possible today despite our poor grid positions; we were right but it’s frustrating to make a good comeback without scoring any points. You never know, though, if the weather is unsettled tomorrow, maybe we’ll be able to get into the top six.”
