GP2 Series – DAMS keeps up the momentum!

The 2013 season got off to a sluggish start for DAMS. After the weekend in the Belgian Ardennes thanks to Marcus Ericsson’s second place on Saturday and Stéphane Richelmi’s fourth on Sunday, the French squad has fought its way up to fourth place in the teams’ classification on level pegging with Rapax. In the last four rounds it has scored the most points (134) of all the teams in the championship and with three rounds still to run it has its sights on a finish in the top 3!

After encouraging free practice sessions – Stéphane and Marcus seventh and eighth-quickest times – DAMS continued the good work in qualifying with the Swedish driver clinching fourth place on the grid and his team-mate from Monaco the eighth. In the feature race on Saturday Bird was uncatchable. Ericsson made the best of a great start and a good tyre change to get up into second place where he stayed till the finish. Richelmi gained a position and after a solid race saw the flag in seventh spot.

The driver from Monaco was second on the grid for the second heat, but he was unable to fend off the first three as they had new tyres, which he didn’t, thus his fourth place is all the more praiseworthy. Ericsson fought the same battle as he too started on used rubber and fell back to fifteenth. Despite this the Belgian weekend was very positive overall before the Monza round in two weeks.

François Sicard, Managing Director: “We’re continuing our fight back in the teams’ championship and the two drivers are also moving up the classifications in theirs. Overall it was a very satisfying weekend once again, and I’d like to congratulate the whole team. Marcus drove a superb race on Saturday and Stéphane never put a foot wrong throughout the weekend. We’re on a roll and we can upset the applecart between now and the end of the championship by making it into the top three and giving the leaders something to worry about. That’s the aim!”

Marcus Ericsson: “I’m very happy with another top three finish which is a reward for the all team’s efforts. On Saturday, there was no way I could catch Bird, but again we scored a big haul of points. It’s great for the team and for myself as I’m aiming to break into the top five between now and the end of the season. We’re going to fight to achieve this.”

Stéphane Richelmi: “I’ve come away from this weekend with a lot of positives even if I wasn’t able to finish in the top three on Sunday when starting from second. We’ve still got the pace – in passing my thanks to the team who did a great job – and little by little I’m scoring points and helping the team back to the top. We’ll have to continue in the same vein in the final rounds.”

Next race: Monza, Italy, 7-8 September