By: DAMS Racing
July 13 2016
Latifi produced the best qualifying performance of his short GP2 career - and equalled the highest Feature Race starting spot by a DAMS car this year - to put his machine third on the grid for Saturday's opener.
Optimistic of a podium, the Canadian was delayed by slower rivals who had also chosen to start the race on the harder-compound tyres available and slipped out of the top-10 when he made his mandatory change of rubber.
The Renault Formula One development driver finished 11th - just a tenth of a second outside the points - but went one better in Sunday's Sprint Race.
Lynn started the Feature Race 15th and lost ground just after the lights had gone out when he was forced to run wide and off the circuit at Turn One to avoid a collision that had taken place ahead of him.
This limited the Williams Martini Racing Development Driver to 16th place by the chequered flag. He added 14th in Sunday's Sprint Race.
Alex Lynn lies ninth in the Drivers' Championship, but is just 28 points from the leading spot and Nicholas Latifi is 14th.
The GP2 Series reaches its midway point at the Hungaroring next time out. Lynn has good memories of the circuit after winning last year while both he and Latifi will be aiming to put themselves at the front of the field once more.
Nicholas Latifi (11th/10th), said: "After a few issues in practice that limited our pace, I was very happy to have qualified third, especially at a circuit like Silverstone, where the number of fast, flowing corners make it hard to find a rhythm. On reflection, starting on the harder tyres in Race One was not the right move; I might have taken too much performance out of the tyres too soon and I wasn't able to consolidate my qualifying pace. But we've done some very good work and learnt some important lessons for the rest of the season."
Alex Lynn (16th/14th), said:"It was an 'off' weekend for us and we'll be working very hard with the engineers and the data from Monday morning onwards to understand what has happened this weekend and why we were not able to perform in qualifying or in either race. Honestly, I don't see any reason why we cannot rebound in Hungary in a fortnight and the situation with the points is so close that we can make it up, I'm currently behind by."
François Sicard, Managing Director, said: "This was a difficult weekend for us. We don't believe this was the result we should have got, but we showed good pace in the early stages of the weekend. We aren't sure why Alex struggled; that will be something we have to look into this week with the engineers. Nicholas put in a great lap to qualify third and had good speed in the early stages of the race, but was held up by some of the drivers ahead of him, lost time and with it, the chance to score some good points."
Canadians In BOLD