Lola Yamaha ABT showed promise at the Miami International Autodrome, with stronger pace and performance.
Both cars were running well in FP2 before the session was red flagged following a collision between Lucas and Mitch Evans (Jaguar TCS Racing), resulting in Lucas having a three-place grid penalty for the race.
Qualifying was very close and although Lucas was P10 in Group A, he was less than three tenths from making the duels. Zane finished P7 in Group B and was just a tenth from the duels. Zane and Lucas therefore lined up on the grid in P13 and P19 respectively. Due to the wet weather, the race began with a rolling start under the Safety Car for the opening laps, before the cars lined up for a standing start. Both drivers opted to save their Attack Modes until the second half of the race but despite good pace they weren’t quite able to finish in the points, instead crossing the line in P11 (Zane) and P13 (Lucas).
“It’s been a complicated weekend with a few ups and downs but we made a lot of improvements. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to score points but the car felt good, we had good pace and we managed to do a lot of overtakes. Most importantly, the team is making progress, the car is getting faster and we are getting more competitive. Hopefully we can keep this momentum and start scoring points in the next races.”
“I think it has been a very good weekend for the team. We had good pace from FP1 all the way until the race and the team did a very good job with maximising each session. Unfortunately, we finished P11 and narrowly missed out on scoring points, which I think we could have done today if things went our way. Generally, I’m very satisfied with the way the team is working and improving. From my side I feel like I drove much better over the weekend and maximised the car we had. Obviously there are still always things to improve on, and we’ll try to do that for Jeddah, but if we continue in this way then we can’t leave the weekend too angry.”
“Overall it’s been a very smooth weekend, starting with FP0 where Hugh did a good job to prepare us for the weekend. Having that additional data is really beneficial for us, particularly as we only have two cars on the grid.
“We are continuing to make positive steps forward with organisation and processes behind the scenes and this showed with good race pace which unfortunately we were not able to translate into points this weekend. However, we will keep working hard and hope to stay on this trajectory of improvement to score points in Jeddah.”
