By: DAMS Racing
October 3 2016

DAMS driver Alex Lynn finished in a strong fourth place in the GP2 Series at the penultimate round of the 2016 season at the Sepang International Circuit (September 29 - October 2), while Nicholas Latifi fought back from early misfortune to take a top-10 result in Malaysia.

Both demonstrated promising pace during qualifying; Briton Lynn posting the sixth-fastest time and Canadian Latifi showing front-running pace before a yellow flag ended his chances of a top-10 grid spot.

Lynn made a good start and climbed to fifth by the end of the first lap and ran there for the first half of the race; the Williams Martini Racing Development Driver then making up another position with a superbly-judged overtaking manoeuvre on British compatriot Oliver Rowland later on.

Team-mate Latifi made a lightning start to climb from 12th to seventh, but a spin dropped him down the order and forced him to make an earlier-than-planned pitstop, which preceded a 14th-place finish.

Gearbox issues for Lynn caused him to lose ground at the start of race two and a lack of grip restricted him to 12th at the chequered flag, while Renault Sport Formula One Team Test Driver Latifi performed strongly to climb to tenth.

DAMS hold fifth in the Teams' Championship while Lynn and Latifi are ninth and seventeenth in the drivers' standings with season finale, in support of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, to go on November 25-27.

Alex Lynn, P4/P12: "Qualifying was messy with a lot of red flags and problems throughout, so while sixth wasn't exactly what we wanted, it wasn't a bad starting position for the Feature Race. We had a good consistent run to finish fourth, which is a good improvement; and the car felt positive, which is great. There are some questions as to what we feel went on in the second race; it wasn't an ideal result, but we'll look into everything to try and find out what is going on."

Nicholas Latifi, P14/P10: "Qualifying was definitely a missed opportunity; the red and yellow flags scuppered my chances of maybe finishing in the top seven. I had a really good start, but then spun off the track, which pretty much ruined my race as I flat-spotted the tyres. A top-eight result would have been possible without the spin. I managed the Sprint Race much better with no mistakes. We are still missing a bit of pace, so we have to analyse it and see why. Next is Abu Dhabi. We were fastest there in winter testing so hopefully we can end this season on a high."

François Sicard, Managing Director: "Race one was good for us, with Alex fourth and not far off the podium. Nicholas had a fantastic start and was up to seventh before he went wide and spun. It was disappointing, but there were positives. In the second race, Alex had a dogging gearbox at the start so lost momentum. Then he struggled to get the tyres up to temperature and lacked grip. We don't really understand why this happened; it wasn't due to the balance in the car, as this was good all weekend. Nicholas had a good second race to battle back to tenth; it's not where we want to be but there are good signs. Hopefully we can convert these into strong results in Abu Dhabi."

Canadians In BOLD