Doohan 9th in Euroformula Debut
Jack Doohan has finished in the top ten in both Races on his strong Euroformula Championship debut with Double R Racing team at Paul Ricard over the weekend.
Race 1 - Position 9
Doohan struggled in qualifying alongside his team-mate and finished P12 on the Paul Ricard track for the first round of the Euroformula Championship.
Despite starting from Row 6, the Red Bull Racing Junior had a great start to the 17-lap race, maintaining position early on during the season curtain-raiser, gaining a couple of places but was edged back to P12 before the Safety Car was deployed.
After the restart, Doohan climbed up the order and made his way back into the top 10 by lap 7 and grabbed P9 on lap 10 with a superb pass at turn 1.
The Race leaders were far ahead of the traffic in the midfield and as a result, Doohan finished in P9 and P5 in the rookie class.
Race 2 - Position 9
Doohan qualified P11 on Sunday for the 15-lap race, again struggling against a lack of qualifying pace.
Doohan’s HWA-powered Dallara F317 had better race pace than it did in qualifying and he was able to swiftly make his way into the top 10, climbed into P9 on lap 2.
Mid-race the Australian moved through to P8 and then had to soak up a huge amount of pressure from Teppei Natori, which he did admirably but slipped to P9 just before the conclusion of the race. D
oohan crossed the line in P9 for the second time that weekend and again finished the Race P5 in the rookie class.
The Australian is now 10th in the Overall Championship and 5th in the Rookie Championship on 6 points.
“I don't want to be finishing P9. We struggled with a few different things, couldn't get the car working, set-up or whatever we couldn't get the tyres to work. On Saturday the race pace was good once I got in the clear, the lap times were good but then again this morning we struggled again in Qualifying 2, a few things were not right. Race 2 this afternoon the pace was better again, I caught some other cars but they were a bit loose, cutting the chicanes when I caught them. The stewards looked at it but decided not to do anything which was a bit strange I thought. So no I'm not happy at all. Way back when I tested with Yuki (Tsunoda) and other guys in the same car as them I was as quick or quicker than them but here we were not close, so something's not right. We've got work to do, get our heads down and look forward to Pau.”
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
- 1 - Liam LAWSON, Team Motopark, 38 points
- 2 - Mario SATO, Team Motopark, 35 points
- 3 - Lukas DUNNER, Teo Martin Motorsport, 31 points
- 4 - Yuki TSUNODA, Team Motopark, 26 points
- 5 - Guilherme SAMIA, Teo Martin Motorsport, 23 points
- 10 - Jack DOOHAN, Double R Racing, 4 points