Christian Ho “really proud” after maiden points and hard work with DAMS Lucas Oil

Eighth place in the Sakhir Sprint Race was a hard-earned reward for Christian Ho. The DAMS Lucas Oil driver started from ninth but had to fight his way back up the order after a tricky start left him on the edge of the top 10.

The Singaporean driver delivered a strong race performance to climb back through, passing rivals to secure P8 by the chequered flag.

Speaking about his race afterwards, Ho said it was a great performance by the team considering the sweltering conditions and the tough start to the Sprint they endured.

“Really proud to be the first Singaporean to score points in F3,” he said. “Starting from P9, you’re not expecting it to be a race where you fight all the way to the podium or P1, but we definitely expected something.

“I had a quite a bad start, I think I dropped down to P9 or P10 and then fought back to P8 at the end. So, it was really hard to follow behind cars surprisingly at this track, I think the heat especially - we were trying to cool down the engine and the water temp, because it was getting really high, and the tyres were overheating as well.

“So it was not a very easy race to manage, but still we managed to get some points out of it and looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

Ho paid tribute to his team and the work they undertook during the in-season test last month around the Bahrain International Circuit.

He says it laid the foundations to their strong weekend up to this point, with his fine P4 result in Qualifying to go along with maiden points for the Sprint.

While they were in a good position for the race on Saturday, Ho says that the conditions meant they had to adapt some more with temperatures as high as they were.

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“We had the in-season test in Bahrain, which helped us a lot to understand the tyres. But I think this weekend we've had a completely different track. Even if you look at F1, they've gone much slower than they have in previous years.

“So the track is completely different, and the temperature is really high as well. So it was really hard to manage overheating and every time we had a Safety Car, and we continued.

“It was like the balance changed completely. It wasn’t very easy to manage. I think the team has done a really good job with me to be in this position where I can fight for the top three in quali and maybe even pole.

“I think I didn't drive enough during the off-season as well, which is why I was not very sharp before Melbourne. But I think I paid the team back in this race and Qualifying. We've made a lot of steps, especially in the in-season test, where I think we found a lot of things that we were missing to try to be at the top at the moment.”

Looking ahead to the Feature Race, Ho says that he will be aiming for more points after a strong display up to this point across his second F3 weekend.

There will be tweaks made overnight based on what they found today in the Sprint, but a first visit to the rostrum is the target according to the DAMS driver.

“I think tomorrow will hopefully be a bit better. We have to make some changes after today, because I had a little bit of the oversteer. I think starting further in front tomorrow will be much easier I'd say for us and hopefully we can go for the podium. Tomorrow is where all the big points are scored, and hopefully it’s good.”