Jake Hughes secured his and DAMS their maiden GP3 Series victory in race two at the Hockenheimring, and felt it was a straightforward race for him, once he had made it back into the lead following a lacklustre getaway.
Stewards looked into the move that took Hughes back into the lead passed Arjun Maini, with the overtake happening just as the Virtual Safety Car was called upon when Artur Janosz hit the barriers, but they deemed the move was completed before Hughes needed to adhere to the VSC conditions.
Hughes believes the team have shown good race pace in 2016, but are still looking to unlock their potential in qualifying that, once they’ve sorted out their one lap pace, should enable them to be genuine threats for more race wins.
“It feels fantastic to get the first win for myself and for DAMS in GP3,” said Hughes. “I made a bad start and lost the lead, but once I got back in front, it was plain sailing.
“The car has had great speed all weekend in race trim and it enabled me to recover from P12 to P8 in Race One, which helped me to get the reverse-grid pole.
“We still have issues with unlocking the tyre performance in qualifying and this is something that’s compromised our weekend a couple of times. We’ll work to get on top of this before Spa, but the win gives us a huge lift.”