Ayumu Iwasa taking his maiden race win at Circuit Paul Ricard in the Le Castellet Feature Race wasn’t the only thing that the DAMS‘ garage and team boss Charles Pic had to celebrate last weekend.
The win was the French racing outfit’s first under the new management of the former Formula 1 driver and to make it even better, it was on their home soil.
In a post-race press release by the team, Pic spoke of his delight, “This is the sort of race we dream of, we had great pace, Ayumu drove brilliantly and took a well-deserved victory.”
Pic took over the team before the start of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 season after coming to an agreement with former co-team principals Olivier and Grégory Driot. The Driot brothers assumed control of the Le Mans based team in 2019 following the death of their father and team founder Jean-Paul Driot.
“To win like this makes us think of Jean-Paul Driot, we’re proud of his legacy and thanking him today for giving us the chance to enjoy these moments. We also have to congratulate François Sicard who laid the foundations for this season.”
Iwasa took the lead following a poor start from pole-sitter Logan Sargeant who bogged down the order due to wheel-spin when the lights went out. From then, the Red Bull junior stretched out a comfortable lead to win by over eight seconds to second place man and home hero Théo Pourchaire.
“Today we were fast on both compounds of tyre and entirely controlled the race. Even under the Safety Car, Ayumu got the perfect restart and quickly pulled a gap to the cars behind. The crew also did a great job this weekend.”
“We had a short turnaround after the race last night, but they prepared the cars brilliantly and did two perfect pit stops under five seconds so we’re very proud of their hard work.”
Iwasa’s team-mate and former Williams F1 test driver, Roy Nissany, moved up from twentieth on the grid to ninth which gained two extra points for the team in the teams’ standings.
“We’re delighted to take this victory at our home event, we couldn’t have dreamed of a better result. Also on Roy’s side, he showed his speed and how quick he can be, moving up 11 positions to finish P9 and score some more valuable points for the team.”
DAMS now sit in sixth place in the teams’ standings as we head into round ten of the championship which will take place in Budapest in a double header race weekend.
