Race 3 one of the ‘best’ for Crawford, who says he ‘wanted too much’ in first half of the season

27 September 2021

Jak Crawford says he’s “calmed down” in the second half of the season and believes it's behind his upturn in form after he took points in four of the final five races – his best run at this level.

The American took his best Sunday result in the final race of the season, finishing fifth on track to take 13th in the Drivers’ Championship, but he believes he could have cracked the top 10 had he changed his approach earlier on.

“The biggest thing for me in the first half of the season was the number of mistakes that I made,” he said. “I just wanted the results so bad, I wanted too much, and it forced me into mistakes. In the last few rounds, I have calmed myself down a bit and gotten some good results, that's the main point.

“It is a bit of a shame, though, as I think that we left a lot of points on the table because of a few mistakes and a few incidents. Some of the problems that we suffered probably prevented us from getting a top 10 place in the Championship.

Crawford finished fifth in Race 3, his best result on a Sunday

“Even so, the high moments that we’ve had this year and the potential that we’ve shown has been good.”

Crawford made his way up from 10th on the starting grid in Race 3 and believes that the performance ranks amongst his best this season, putting it up there with his podium in Race 1 at Spa-Francorchamps.

“The start was a bit crazy, and a lot was going on in the first couple laps, but then once I got into a rhythm, the speed seemed really good,” he said. “By the halfway point, I think I was up to sixth. I was trying to catch the guys ahead and I was able to take P5 on the last lap, so that was a really good result.

“I would say overall that the weekend at the Red Bull Ring was my strongest because we had the speed for pole, but we had some traffic, and then we were fighting for a race win before an engine blow-up.

“Other than that, my podium in Spa was a big help, and then this last race in Russia, I would say this is one of my best moments of the year. It was a lot of fun.”