Fuel Tank Failure Denies Victory for DAMS in Monza
DAMS took a dominant victory in Monza with Dan Ticktum but was later disqualified from the win. Due to a leak in the spec fuel tank DAMS couldn’t provide a post-race fuel sample causing Ticktum’s car to be disqualified from the win.
Ticktum dominated the entire race and the problem that was unrelated to the driver, team, and the engineers, according to DAMS, deprived the Brit of this win. With the competitiveness of the Formula 2 field reliability issues can cost a lot of places in the Championship standings.
Dan Ticktum said: “The first five laps of the Sprint Race were very tense because as soon as you break the DRS your chances of winning go up quite a lot. I was pretty much flat out early on, and I was a bit worried about the tyre degradation for the end of the race, but after a few laps, I was edging away and could relax. Of course, I’m absolutely gutted by the disqualification. I know the team did nothing wrong, and it was a problem out of their control. We executed a fantastic race today, and I crossed the line first, so in my mind, we’ve won.”
Juri Vips qualified 11th for the Feature Race, where he finished just outside the points in the same place he started. The Sprint Race saw Vips finish in 10th then moving up to ninth because of his teammate’s disqualification.
Juri Vips said: “Another weekend of learning on my side. We made a new seat for this race, but it actually caused some issues. I wasn’t able to apply enough brake pressure, and I was accidentally cross-pedalling with the throttle. This is just a consequence of the circumstances we are in, had we been testing or had some more track time we wouldn’t have this issue and could have started the Feature Race higher up. I still need to work on my tyre management, but again jumping in with no experience doesn’t help.
I’m looking forward to Mugello. Hopefully, we can have a good qualifying and a strong weekend.”
DAMS will hope that Mugello will be better for them when Formula 2 heads to the Italian circuit for the first time.
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* Image Credit: Formula Motorsport Limited
