Andretti Global will field Jak Crawford (pictured above) and Zane Maloney at the upcoming Formula E rookie tests, the team has announced. Both drivers will run at the test following the Berlin E-Prix in May, while Maloney will also run in practice …
Andretti Global will field Jak Crawford (pictured above) and Zane Maloney at the upcoming Formula E rookie tests, the team has announced. Both drivers will run at the test following the Berlin E-Prix in May, while Maloney will also run in practice at the Misano E-Prix on the second weekend of April.
Crawford’s outing in Berlin will be his first in a Formula E car and will make him the first American since Oliver Askew in Season 8 to run in an official Formula E event. Like Maloney, the American is currently in his second full year of Formula 2.
“I’m very excited to be joining Andretti for the Berlin Rookie Test,” said Crawford. “It’s an amazing opportunity for me to try out the Formula E GEN3 car for the very first time.
“It will be my first time driving a fully electric car as well, and I can’t wait to see what it’s like. Thanks to Andretti Formula E for the incredible opportunity.”
Barbados native Maloney, the team’s designated reserve and development driver, ran in the Berlin test and Rome E-Prix practice last year, too, as well as at pre-season testing in Valencia back in August.
“I can’t wait to represent Andretti Formula E once again at both Misano and Berlin,” said Maloney. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with the team and thank them for all the trust they have put in me.
“It will be interesting to see how the development work I’ve contributed to behind the scenes translates to the actual car on track during both occasions I get to drive it.”
Andretti Team principal Roger Griffiths said, “Zane has proven to be a valuable asset to our team through his development work on the simulator, and we are confident that his knowledge will benefit us during the Misano E-Prix doubleheader weekend and the Berlin Rookie Test.
“Additionally, we are pleased to announce Jak Crawford’s rookie debut at the Berlin Rookie Test, which marks an important milestone in his career. We look forward to seeing him showcase his talents on the Formula E stage. These opportunities are integral to Andretti Global’s commitment to developing and mentoring the next generation of drivers, and we are eager to see both Zane and Jak excel on track.”
Andretti Global will field Jak Crawford (pictured above) and Zane Maloney at the upcoming Formula E rookie tests, the team has announced. Both drivers will run at the test following the Berlin E-Prix in May, while Maloney will also run in practice …
Andretti Global will field Jak Crawford (pictured above) and Zane Maloney at the upcoming Formula E rookie tests, the team has announced. Both drivers will run at the test following the Berlin E-Prix in May, while Maloney will also run in practice at the Misano E-Prix on the second weekend of April.
Crawford’s outing in Berlin will be his first in a Formula E car and will make him the first American since Oliver Askew in Season 8 to run in an official Formula E event. Like Maloney, the American is currently in his second full year of Formula 2.
“I’m very excited to be joining Andretti for the Berlin Rookie Test,” said Crawford. “It’s an amazing opportunity for me to try out the Formula E GEN3 car for the very first time.
“It will be my first time driving a fully electric car as well, and I can’t wait to see what it’s like. Thanks to Andretti Formula E for the incredible opportunity.”
Barbados native Maloney, the team’s designated reserve and development driver, ran in the Berlin test and Rome E-Prix practice last year, too, as well as at pre-season testing in Valencia back in August.
“I can’t wait to represent Andretti Formula E once again at both Misano and Berlin,” said Maloney. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with the team and thank them for all the trust they have put in me.
“It will be interesting to see how the development work I’ve contributed to behind the scenes translates to the actual car on track during both occasions I get to drive it.”
Andretti Team principal Roger Griffiths said, “Zane has proven to be a valuable asset to our team through his development work on the simulator, and we are confident that his knowledge will benefit us during the Misano E-Prix doubleheader weekend and the Berlin Rookie Test.
“Additionally, we are pleased to announce Jak Crawford’s rookie debut at the Berlin Rookie Test, which marks an important milestone in his career. We look forward to seeing him showcase his talents on the Formula E stage. These opportunities are integral to Andretti Global’s commitment to developing and mentoring the next generation of drivers, and we are eager to see both Zane and Jak excel on track.”
Jak Crawford has left the Red Bull junior team setup and suggests he was pushed through the ranks too quickly, as he maps out his updated path towards Formula 1. The American joined Red Bull in 2020 and completed one year in German and Italian …
Jak Crawford has left the Red Bull junior team setup and suggests he was pushed through the ranks too quickly, as he maps out his updated path towards Formula 1.
The American joined Red Bull in 2020 and completed one year in German and Italian Formula 4 before moving up to Formula 3 for two years. Promoted to Formula 2 this season, Crawford has one win and one pole position as well as four further podiums, but sits 11th in the championship with one round remaining.
He has now confirmed he won’t be with Red Bull in 2024, and in announcing his departure, the press release suggested the way Crawford was moved up rapidly and has never spent consecutive seasons with the same team was not beneficial to his development.
“Once he was moved early to F3, it became nearly impossible to slow his upward progress inside of the Red Bull junior program,” the release stated. “While the 2023 season has seen rapid acclimatization to the incredibly competitive F2 landscape that has included, to date, a race victory, a handful of podiums and a pole position, it could be argued that the debuts in both F3 and F2 each came one year too early.”
Quotes attributed to Crawford himself say he will now try and take a more patient approach to gaining experience, with a 2024 seat in F2 already agreed.
“We are thankful for the Red Bull funding for four years, and honestly, we could not have done much of it without their substantial support,” said Crawford. “We were wanting to make key decisions and we let them know mid-year. After that, they didn’t pick up my fifth and final year, so we are in control now. I truly appreciate everyone at Red Bull, especially Rocky (Guillaume Rocquelin). I really enjoyed the last two years with him at the factory.
“Everyone has a different path, but mine has been to be moved up fast and to a different team every year. In two years, I will be only 20 years old, so we are going to slow it down and work a more thoughtful plan. That is all I can say about our plans at this point in time. Again, I am grateful for Red Bull for four years of support.”
Jak Crawford came home a winner for the first time in FIA Formula 2 competition, with the 18-year-old rookie from Texas capturing Saturday’s Sprint Race at the home race for sponsor Red Bull. He then backed it up with a big drive in the feature race …
Jak Crawford came home a winner for the first time in FIA Formula 2 competition, with the 18-year-old rookie from Texas capturing Saturday’s Sprint Race at the home race for sponsor Red Bull. He then backed it up with a big drive in the feature race to score his season-best feature race result.
The Red Bull Racing Junior started from the pole and dominated the 27-lap Saturday Sprint for Hitech Pulse-Eight Racing. On Sunday, an alternate tire strategy led the Red Bull Junior rookie driver to an eighth-place finish in the Feature, gaining seven positions over the final eight laps.
The seventh event of the campaign opened the busiest stretch of the season for the Formula One hopeful, with F2 set to stage four two-race weekends during the month of July as Crawford opened the month with a big weekend.
Red Bull Content Pool
“It was my best F2 weekend so far, a pretty crazy weekend,” Crawford said. “It was pretty cool to hear the National Anthem at the podium, especially in Formula 2. It was a great race, and I’m so happy with the results. The Red Bull people are happy – I did a lot of stuff with them after the race and it was quite fun.”
After what seemed like a slow start to the weekend as Crawford 19th of 22 drivers in the lone practice, the young American still came away happy from the session.
“I had lap times deleted (due to exceeding track limits), so my lap time wasn’t really representative,” he explained. “I was in the top five for most of practice, so I was actually pretty happy with the practice.”
Qualifying was more difficult, but the results were better. Crawford timed in 10th fastest, good enough to put him on the pole position for the Sprint Race’s inverted grid for the second time this season. It was his sixth-consecutive top-10 qualifying result.
“Qualifying was tough, and it was really close as well,” Crawford said. “I think we missed the setup a tiny bit, and we ended up in 10th. I think we could have had more, but it was super tight.”
Rain an hour before the event soaked the circuit. With a light drizzle nearing the start, competitors were faced with the choice of going with rain tires or gambling with slicks to tackle the damp 10-turn circuit.
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Crawford started on slicks. While he got off to a great jump at lights-out, he was sixth and struggling by the end of the opening lap. The conditions led to two early safety car interventions. He managed to get up to second between the cautions, and took the lead when the driver in front opted to pit for slick tires. When racing resumed, Crawford again got a great start and built up a gap of more than one second – preventing his rivals from gaining a DRS advantage. From that point, he managed the gap and led the final 22 laps for his maiden F2 victory.
Red Bull Content Pool
“It was a bit of an unknown going into the Sprint Race,” he said. “We had to do what was best for the future, and in the end, it all worked out like we planned. It was a smooth race. The track was very wet at the start, it was hard to get temperature (into the tires]. Considering the conditions, I had a really good start and managed to keep the lead for two corners. Despite all that, everyone knew that in the end, slicks would be better. Once I got the lead, I was just taking it easy, trying not to get any track limits penalties, and making sure the gap was not coming down.”
Sunday, Crawford started 10th in the 40-lap Feature Race but got bumped and fell back on the opening lap. Starting on harder-compound tires, he was up to sixth by lap 11 as drivers began switching to the alternate tire.
“I had an incident at the start of the race,” he explained. “I was fighting for seventh place going into turn one and I fell all the way back to 17th. I was using the tires up trying to get back up. But near the end, there was a safety car that allowed me to put on my good tires, and I was able to come back through the pack and score some points.”
Red Bull Content Pool
Halfway through his rookie F2 campaign, Crawford moved up to 13th in the standings with 38 points. He now has four podiums – all in Sprint Races – and seven points-paying finishes.
“Obviously, we still have a bit of work to do,” he said. “I feel we have more to come in the Feature Races. We need to work on qualifying time and making sure we score big in the Feature Race, but we’ve done a lot of work over the break and we made a big improvement.”
Next up is the British Silverstone circuit. After a weekend off, F2 has back-to-back weekends, in Budapest July 22-23 and Spa July 29-30.
“Silverstone is a bit of a home race for Hitech and I,” Crawford said. “I’m really looking forward to that track. It has a lot of high-speed corners; it’s really tough on tires, and I’m looking forward to being there for the first time in a Formula 2 car.”
It’s an increasingly common conversation among racing fans in the United States who want to see success in Formula 1. The talent pool is clearly there, so why are there not more drivers in the frame for F1 seats? Logan Sargeant has become the first …
It’s an increasingly common conversation among racing fans in the United States who want to see success in Formula 1. The talent pool is clearly there, so why are there not more drivers in the frame for F1 seats?
Logan Sargeant has become the first full-time American on the grid in over 15 years, and at a time when immensely skilled young drivers are shining in what appears to be an ever-strengthening IndyCar field, it feels like there should be a conveyor belt queuing up to join him in F1. Instead, there are three in Formula 2, but none are banging the door down quite yet.
While Ecuador can also lay claim to Juan Manuel Correa and both Guatemala and Spain the same for Brad Benavides, the youngest of the trio and best-placed is Jak Crawford. At just 17 and Red Bull-backed, he’s got time on his side, an F1 team’s support and – like Correa – a podium to his name.
But his story is perhaps a good example of why it’s taken so long to reach the point of fans having an American F1 driver to get behind, and why the three currently chasing the dream in F2 – and all of those who may follow – deserve the utmost respect.
Crawford was hotel-hopping around Italy at the age of 12 to start racing karts, before a growth spurt – hardly unusual for a kid entering his teens, but also not something you can predict – made that path appear too challenging and a move into Formula 4 cars in Mexico followed after he turned 13.
That wasn’t exactly a stable period, as he was still racing karts alongside a stint in USF2000, but then it all changed very quickly in October of 2019, when he was still just 14 years old.
“My dad received an email or a phone call from Dr. (Helmut) Marko saying that he wanted to meet us in Mexico City,” Crawford recalls to RACER. “This was back in in 2019. We were in Houston. So of course we are close to Mexico City – only an hour flight. So they were there for the grand prix, of course, and me and my dad got the flight and met Dr. Marko that night.
“That was my my first interaction with him. I had a 15-20 minute chat with him, which went well, and that was when he said he wanted to see me on track. So within a week, he sent me to the Milton Keynes headquarters to go in the simulator. And then I went to Van Amersfoort Racing (in the Netherlands) for time in their simulator as well.
After making a good impression on Red Bull’s Helmut Marko, Crawford’s F1 hopes got back on the rails with a string of junior programs in Europe including Italian F4 with Van Amersfoort in 2020. Red Bull Content Pool
“All was good on the simulator, and then I went to a two-day test at the Red Bull Ring. There were some other Red Bull Junior drivers there, there was Johnny Edgar there, and Harry Thompson, who was a part of Red Bull at the time, so I was sort of up against them.
“At the Red Bull Ring, I remember it was very, very cold, very wet for half of the day – it was really tough to get any sort of tire temperature or anything. But at the end of the first day, he had already offered me a contract and said he was impressed by my simulator work and my first day and that was it. It was done on the first day.
“So that was that was really nice. That was a moment I think I’ll remember forever.”
There had already been a training camp with the Ferrari Driver Academy that had amounted to nothing, at which point Crawford felt the F1 dream had disappeared. But in the space of three weeks he’d gone from having first contact with Marko to signing a contract that would put him on course for a full season of Formula 4 in Europe.
It’s a dream to many, but it came at an often-overlooked price when you think about what many other young teens would normally be doing at Crawford’s age.
“I miss my family, of course,” he says. “I had to leave school quite early at 12 years old, then I started doing homeschooling or online school on my own. So I think I miss, you know, the bit of the childhood of growing up as a teenager and the high school part of it, which is tough. It was something that I wanted – I’m a very social person, especially with my friends.
“So that was a really difficult part, to miss out on on the social life of just an American sort of high school thing. But it’s definitely worth it.”
During that time, Crawford was being fast-tracked from Formula 4 towards Formula 1. And yet he was still hotel hopping around Europe as he raced for Van Amersfoort, British-based Hitech, German team Motopark and renowned Italian outfit Prema.
Last month’s long flight to Melbourne paid off with an F2 podium. Red Bull Content Pool
It was less than a year ago that Crawford finally got a permanent base he could call home – or at least a home away from his family’s Houston home – and even that was designed around his racing career and where he needed to be, with the hardly-glamorous Milton Keynes (I’m British, I can say it…) picked due to its proximity to his F2 team Hitech and Red Bull’s factory.
“I do feel I have matured, especially as I’m living on my own already,” he says. “I was living alone at 16… I have to cook for myself, I have my own car, I drive myself around, places I need to go. And it sort of feels like I have a job – even though I’m still in Formula 2, it feels like have a job and I’m doing everything for myself.
“So yeah, I do feel like I’ve had to mature more as well. On the racing part of it, I’m racing guys that are older than me, and with quite a bit of experience in racing. So in that part, I have to advance myself. I feel like in my career, I’ve done a good job of doing that even since an early age in go-karts, always moving up early to the next category, which was good. I think that sort of helped me in the junior careers to be where I was at, in F3 at such a young age.”
After his podium in the F2 sprint race in Melbourne and as the second-longest serving member of the Red Bull Junior Team at just 17, Crawford appears to be on a promising trajectory towards F1 at some stage in the future. But despite it working out for him so far, he would prefer it – both for himself and other Americans who aspire to race in F1 – if there were options to race closer to home and not be at a disadvantage to other drivers.
“It does matter if there was a route to Formula 1 in the U.S., I think,” he says. “I do wish there was a better one, although there’s not many ways I could see it happening any better. Of course, they have (series) like the U.S. F4 Championship, which is I’m pretty sure is FIA-driven. But that’s all they really got. I think they have a regional series as well. But it stops there and it’s not going onto an F1 path.
“So when you get that chance to go to Europe on an F1 path, you have to take it. It’s really difficult to learn all the tracks and stuff like that. And it’s a different type of racing over there – completely different from racing in the US to Europe. So, I wish there was a better path, but I don’t think there possibly will be.”
Formula 1’s owners Liberty Media are listening, but it won’t be a quick fix. So for now, drivers like Crawford will continue have to consider such a major life change if they want to chase an F1 future.
