A difficult week-end for DAMS

This weekend, Hockenheim hosted the sixth round of the 2010 GP2 Series Championship, curtain-raisers to the F1 German Grand Prix. Ho-Pin Tung and Romain Grosjean represented DAMS in both races.

Friday’s practice was perturbed by changeable weather alternating sun and showers. The team had a promising session with Grosjean setting the fifth-quickest time and Tung the tenth.

Tricky weather conditions also upset qualifying. Grosjean was on the pace straight away and took provisional pole, which he held for most of the session. Unfortunately, after it was red-flagged, both DAMS drivers were delayed on their final flyers, and got caught up in traffic so they were unable to fulfill the promise shown in the morning.

Given that they were in thirteenth (Grosjean) and nineteenth (Tung) places on the grid, the team opted for an aggressive strategy in the first race. Romain’s hopes were dashed in the first corner as he was hit by another car, and had to come in to have the rear wing changed. Ho-Pin also lost out at the start and had his front wing damaged.

The track was dry for the second race but both DAMS drivers started from far back on the grid. Grosjean made a magnificent comeback picking off his rivals one by one, lap after lap. He was in sixth place when he was harpooned again and had to retire. Tung saw the flag in fourteenth place.

DAMS is now concentrating on the next round of the championship, which will take place on the Hungaroring near Budapest in a week’s time.

Loïc David, General Manager: “This weekend can be looked at from two points of view. From a negative one, we again failed to score points even though we had high hopes of doing so with the two drivers after free practice. But we prefer to look at things from a positive point of view. We were again among the front-runners on Friday, and also in qualifying. We anticipated the track conditions and we readjusted the cars’ settings as a result. Race 1 was decided by collisions for which our drivers were not responsible. In race 2, Romain’s speed and determination showed that we had the pace to aim for victory had we started from higher up the grid. Of course the team’s disappointed with the result, but in the second race Romain produced the great fight back we were expecting. So we’re leaving in a fairly reassured state of mind about our cars’ performance at Hockenheim, and we hope to capitalize on this in Budapest.”

Romain Grosjean: “I’m delighted to have been able to make my contribution to the team. I found a highly-motivated, very professional warm bunch of guys, and we were on the same wavelength from a work point of view straight away. I gave my maximum from free practice till the end of race 2 and I think it was the right approach. The GP2 Series is still as thrilling as ever and I’m happy to have raced in it this year. I hope DAMS ends the season on a high note - the team really deserves it.”

Ho-Pin Tung: “Conditions were very difficult at the start of the weekend. We managed to make the best of them in free practice. We didn’t have much luck in qualifying, and as I was stuck in the middle of the pack I broke my front wing in race 1. This meant that I started from far back in race 2, and having had so few laps on a dry track it was impossible to perform miracles. We’ll do better in Budapest.”