Victory at Silverstone has launched Jak Crawford back into title contention, a place he thought he’d be in 2025 and year three of FIA Formula 2.
The American is still one of the youngest drivers on the grid, so impressive he has been through the junior ranks, but this is a Championship charge he has been expecting.
Sitting down with the DAMS Lucas Oil driver, Crawford dives into the slow start to the current season, why he feels he’s growing into the campaign and how continuity has brought continued improvement this time around.
“It’s been a good year, I feel like I’m where I expected to be,” he began. “The first two rounds were rough. It was definitely a slow start to the season, not scoring in the first four races of the year.
“Then I started getting my season on track with a pole and P2 in Jeddah, that’s where we should have been. We’ve been consistently scoring good points ever since then.”
Growing into the season
Since getting that pole and podium in Round 3, Crawford has been the highest points scorer of any driver, accumulating his 116 points between Jeddah and Silverstone.
He says he’s aware of the statistic, and it is fuelling his confidence heading into the second half of the 2025 campaign.
“It’s given me a lot of confidence. My main goal was to fix inconsistencies and places where we qualified quite poorly last year. Formula 2 is a lot about consistency, that’s what you need to win championships. You need to score around 15 points or more every weekend, and I’ve had that every single weekend since Jeddah.
“My goal is to win the Championship. And I know what I need to achieve to get that”
“It’s just so tough, anything can go wrong – Alex getting disqualified in Red Bull Ring, or the Feature Race in Monaco, these things can happen. If it’s in a Feature Race, that’s a lot of points that could be a huge swing.
“I know what I need to achieve each weekend. My goal is to win the Championship. And I know what I need to achieve each weekend to get that. Some weekends are not going to go your way, so then you need other results to make up for that.”
Continuity with DAMS
For the first time in his single-seater racing career, Crawford has stuck with the same team from one season to the next.
It has had a hugely positive impact on his progression from one year to the next, with 2025 comfortably his strongest campaign in the Championship up to this point.
The 20-year-old puts that down to having an established working relationship already built up rather than having to start from zero at the beginning of the year.
READ MORE: RACE ANALYSIS: Crawford’s perfect timing and Browning on the charge
“Being with the same team – I know the car, I know how everything works and what’s needed. Changing teams two years ago, nothing really correlated because it’s just so, so different. Now I’m driving pretty much the same car, it’s a lot easier to just fix those little mistakes.
“It’s something that I really value. I think it’s very important, and it’s been a shame I haven’t had that before, because I had that a lot in karting growing up, and it really worked for me. Then through single seaters, it’s not been like that.
“I’m working with the same group of people, and it’s just makes everything a lot easier”
“So now I’m working with the same group of people. I know how they work, they know what I need from the car, and they know how I drive, and it’s just makes everything a lot easier, and it makes the working process work a lot more efficiently.
“I think for me it’s just the type of person I am. I like to dig into things with the team and last year, when doing that, it was just that we didn’t know how it was going to be, because it was so different the previous year, my experience and their experience in 2023.
“So last year was almost like learning things together in a way, and learning how to work together as a group, and now we’re working together as a group, and we’re able to improve.”
Points to improve
While he is the most recent victor this year, that doesn’t mean the DAMS driver has been resting on his laurels.
There are still areas he’s aiming to take to the next level, with Qualifying one area in particular he’s eager to see take another step forward.
With the team’s race pace looking strong relative to rivals, he believes that a strong starting position is a key ingredient needed for DAMS and himself to achieve more race victories and strong results before the 2025 campaign is over.
“I’d like to qualify better. I mean, my qualifying average is probably not the best in the field. I’d still say it’s up there. It’s quite difficult to be consistent in F2, but there’s been a few others that have qualified more consistently than us. So it would be good to get a couple more top threes in Qualifying.
“That just almost for us, reassures us that we’re going to have good points in the race, because we always know we can go forward, even starting in the top three.
“It’s still been good in the races. The car is good, clearly, no matter where we start, as we saw in Red Bull Ring. So we know we can fight for Feature Race wins.”
READ MORE: Bruno Michel’s Double-Header Debrief: Intrigue heading into Round 9
The Run In
With his current form and Silverstone Feature win propelling him up to second in the Drivers’ Championship, Crawford is closing in on the top spot.
It’s a position he’d much rather be in, preferring the target on his back rather than a point to aim for himself. But, he says he’s equally relaxed about the task ahead of him no matter what the order is.
“I’d rather be the chased. That’s just what I prefer, I like to have that advantage. Chasing sucks, because that means you have to get a good result always.
“It’s not like I need to go out and do anything extra to chase Richard down, but I feel like it’s a lot easier. It’s just a better position to be in. I mean you’re leading. So that’s the aim.”