Kamui Kobayashi

This weekend, DAMS raced in the sixth round of the 2009 GP2 Series Championship on the Hungaroring in Hungary. The very twisty, dusty circuit was a different kettle of fish to the Nürburgring 2 weeks earlier.
Jérôme d’Ambrosio and Kamui Kobayashi tried to take up the challenge, but their weekend was compromised by poor qualifying performances. In addition, the Belgian driver suffered electrical glitches affecting gear selection throughout the meeting, a recurrent handicap that led to his retirement in the second race.
The team is going back to Le Mans after a scoreless weekend, and its aim is to carry out an in-depth examination of the reasons for this lack of performance, and then to modify its approach according to the lessons learned. The next round will take place on the Valencia circuit in 4 weeks.
Kamui Kobayashi
Race 1: 21st on the grid, 13th at the finish
Race 2: 13th on the grid, 8th at the finish

“There’s not really a lot to be said. Qualifying went off badly and this handicapped me throughout the weekend. On a circuit where overtaking is virtually impossible, an out-of-sync strategy helped me to gain a good few places in the first race, but not enough to score points. It was the same story on Sunday in the short race in which I managed to pass five cars. When we start from the top end of the grid, we can score points, so we’ve got to concentrate on out-and-out speed on Friday.” Kamui said.