More GP3 points for DAMS at Silverstone

DAMS continued their record of scoring points at every round of the 2016 GP3 Series on an action-packed weekend at Silverstone, England. Santino Ferrucci recorded a career-best fourth-place finish in challenging weather conditions in Race 2 while Jakes Hughes showed impressive pace in Race One and Kevin Joerg secured a pair of solid finishes as he continued to gain experience in the Formula One support series. Ferrucci began Race 2 from 18th; the American teenager having finished there from a pitlane start the previous day. He made a terrific getaway to climb seven places on the opening lap and then mastered the damp track to take the chequered flag fourth - less than four seconds from victory. A similar result had been on the cards for Hughes in Saturday's opening race. Having qualified fifth, the 22-year-old Briton had gained a spot by half-distance. But his race was ruined when a rear-wing support failed and caused his retirement. From the back of the Race 2 grid, Hughes made early gains, but was twice spun off the track by rival drivers, sustaining damaged steering and finishing 17th in front of his home crowd. A spin early in qualifying meant that team-mate Joerg started 21st in Race 1. But a solid drive brought the Swiss racer into 17th by the finish and he made further gains on Sunday morning to come home 11th. DAMS have retained fourth place in the Teams' Championship with three of the nine rounds of the 2016 complete. Hughes lies sixth in the Drivers' Championship with Joerg 13th and Ferrucci 14th. The next round takes place at the Hungaroring in support of the Hungarian Grand Prix on July 22-24. Santino Ferrucci (18th/4th) said: "It was an interesting weekend and it's great to get off the mark and score my first points for the championship. The car felt really good in qualifying, but unfortunately I was hit from behind by another car, which destroyed my tyres, and I then was penalised, which meant I started from the pitlane. I suffered with high tyre degradation in Race 1, but together with my engineer we turned it around for Race 2, made some great changes and were able to come from P18 to P4. I look forward to repeating results like that in the coming rounds." Kevin Joerg (15th/11th) said: "I'm disappointed with the weekend. In qualifying it started to rain early on and so I knew I probably only had one attempt on new tyres before the track got wet. Unfortunately, I made a mistake because the track was wetter than I thought at one corner and I spun off. In Race One I started from the back and had to use my practice tyres because my qualifying tyres were damaged, and I had no pace from them. We saved a set of new tyres for Race 2, but couldn't make them work in the damp conditions. But we learnt a lot and move on to the next round." Jake Hughes said (DNF/17th): "I had the fastest car this weekend and it was only things beyond the team's control that stopped us winning. Qualifying was going well, but had a red flag on what could have been a pole lap, and so it was P5. In Race One I was driving well within myself to stay in P4, but the rear wing broke and I had to retire. That meant I started at the back for Race 2, began well, got hit and dropped back, made up places, got hit and dropped back again. We just have to put this one behind us, because the car is so fast and wins are definitely possible in Hungary." François Sicard, Managing Director, said: "Overall this was a very unlucky weekend for us. We had some issues on all three cars in practice, but our engineers did a fantastic job to rectify this for qualifying. A bit of bad luck with rain and red flags stopped us qualifying higher. Santino did a fantastic job in Race 2 to finish 14 places higher than he started while Jake had the pace to be on the podium in Race 1 before his rear wing broke. On the positive side, our pace and operating window was very similar to what we saw at Barcelona, and this is a good basis for the next events."


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