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Jack Doohan hopes the effort he and his Virtuoisi team have put in to building his confidence in races will pay off this weekend in Imola and kickstart his Formula 2 title push.
The Australian qualified third for Sunday’s Feature Race, in support of the Formula 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, demonstrating his strong one-lap speed.
That has never been in doubt, with strong single lap pace during his cameos in 2021 and a maiden pole position in Bahrain to start the season.
However, to date he’s been unable to translate that into race results, but spent time in testing building his long run confidence which he hopes will net returns this weekend.
“I just didn’t have complete confidence in myself,” he admitted when asked by Speedcafe.com what areas he has been working on.
“We worked hard on that in Barcelona [testing], which was very good that we were able to have that time to assess these difficulties.
“Now I feel in a good position to be confident, not only in me one lap pace, but also in my race pace.”
Doohan is targeting a strong haul of points from his eighth place start from today’s Sprint race, and his second row berth for tomorrow’s Feature.
The 19-year-old sits 14th in the drivers’ championship on six points, with a best result this season of ninth in the Sunday race in Saudi Arabia.
He’s 39 points down on Felipe Drugovich, who heads the competition after the opening two rounds.
“I’m trying to take points this weekend, that’s the goal,” Doohan said.
“We’re obviously in another good position, I’m really thankful for the team.
“In general, race pace is something that I needed to work on, I think we’re quite strong in the Feature race in Jeddah and then I think we took another good step in Barcelona.
“So I feel more confident in myself regardless. The pace was obviously good in Jeddah but it was good to get some more reassurance in Barcelona.
“So we’ll see, but I am sure and confident that we can kickstart our championship here.”
The opening Formula 2 race of the weekend, the 25 lap Sprint outing, followings Formula 1’s Sprint Qualifying session, getting underway at 17:55 local time (01:55 AEST).
Sunday’s 35-lap Feature race begins at 18:20 AEST.
