Steak dinners, sweaty sim sessions, and ghosts: Getting to know the DAMS Lucas Oil Teammates

DAMS Lucas Oil teammates Juan Manuel Correa and Jak Crawford have spent plenty of time together this year and so far, it’s fair to say they are getting on quite well.
So, we decided to put their relationship to the test by asking them a few questions about each other and it is fair to say we got some great answers back.
The American duo were as entertaining as ever and you can read what they had to say below…
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HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR TEAMMATE?
Juan Manuel Correa: “Probably six-foot, curly hair and very American. Jak, how do I describe Jak? He just kind of minds his own business, he can be quiet, but also, he makes random animal noises during the day which come out of nowhere. He is quick, he is very American, and he is a racer. He likes going out there and sending it.”
Jak Crawford: “JM is a bit darker skinned, a bit older, he is very, very funny, very good to talk to over dinner, and he is very nice. It’s good to have him as a teammate as well, he is very good with feedback, very good to have conversations with right after sessions to make the car better and to improve as a team.”
WHAT IS YOUR TEAMMATE’S BEST QUALITY?
Crawford: “What is your best quality? Actually, I would say his best quality is his ability to give good feedback, I feel like he has good experience, and knows what he feels.”
Correa: “Jak’s best quality, well we have a bit of a different driving style, so I look a lot to him on how to drive a certain type of car. But I think his best quality is maybe just his raw speed. He is always going to be quite fast, so it’s a good benchmark to know where I am at and where the package the team is giving us is at, and sometimes we have a bit of a different driving style. I think it works well because there are always corners where I am faster, where he is faster, and we can learn from each other. It’s good to have a teammate who is consistently quick because it’s something you can learn from.”
IF YOUR TEAMMATE WASN’T A RACING DRIVER, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?
Correa: “I feel like he would be a farmer.”
Crawford: “Really?”
Correa: “You’re from Texas. You live on a massive property, you have lots of land. But a sophisticated farmer, not talking about straw in the mouth but a potato farmer, like having a big farm, living out there in Texas, I could see him doing that.”
Crawford: “It’s not true. I think he’d be some kind of businessperson, selling, he’d have his own business, be the CEO of the company, I don’t know maybe real estate.”
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Correa: “Yeah, I talk a lot with his dad and mum because they are in real estate and it’s something that interests me, so could be. But I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, he could be a very successful farmer, because he likes the outdoors. Actually, he could be a paddle player because he is really into paddle.”
Crawford: “I’m alright, not bad. I’d definitely do something in sport, I’d be a professional sportsman either way.”
WHAT IS YOUR TEAMMATE’S MOST ANNOYING HABIT?
Crawford: “I don’t know. I am trying to think. This is a tough one.”
Correa: “For Jak I would say it’s probably the animal noises. This guy is just doing something on his computer and then all of a sudden, it’s like a Tasmanian devil is in the room. It’s like what is going on. It’s quite funny but sometimes I am trying to do something and it’s like this guy is ill. It’s like a surge of energy.”
Crawford: “Sometimes you need to wake yourself up. But the most annoying thing…”
Correa: “I’m pretty perfect.”
Crawford: “You’re not very annoying. I’ll find something.
Correa: “I don’t even fart that much in front of him.”
Crawford: “There are a couple of times he leaves a bad fart in the sim.”
Correa: “I think we both have, we both sweat a lot in the sim so sometimes when you go in the headphones are just really wet, it’s hard to share the headphones. You can put that one for me.”
Crawford: “Yeah, sweaty headphones after a race run in the sim.”
WHO’S THE FUNNIEST?
Crawford: “Think we have our different ways of being funny. I would say JM.”
Correa: “I think from a sophisticated joke standpoint I would say me. I have a bit of a dark sense of humour, so I say stuff at the right time and it’s quite good. But I think Jak sometimes without trying he is so funny, this guy’s stuff, he makes these little spasms and it’s really quite amusing.”
WHAT’S THE MOST EMBARASSING THING YOU’VE DONE WHILST ON THE SAME TEAM?
Crawford: “Probably both going off in the same corner. There is a replay of Qualifying in Austria, he went off and then they cut to replay of me of going off through the grass.”
Correa: “I went off and three seconds later he went off in the first push of Qualifying.”
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IF YOU HAD TO COOK A MEAL FOR YOUR TEAMMATE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Correa: “I would cook him a big piece of steak, with a lot of French fries.”
Crawford: “Exactly the same for him.”
Correa: “Then I will have to get him a desert.”
Crawford: “A floating island.”
Correa: “For those that don’t know what a floating island is, it’s like a meringue floating in vanilla cream, the sauce was massive and he had the whole thing.”
Crawford: “My dessert for winning in Barcelona.”
WHO’S THE BETTER LOOKING?
Correa: “I mean we are biased, but I think he has the curly hair going for him, I am jealous of his hair sometimes.
Crawford: “I would say me but he has the mature look”
Correa: “I look more like a man, I have what the girls are looking for, Jak is still hitting puberty, I am past it.”
Crawford: “He has the beard going for him.”
Correa: “It’s a different audience, different demographic. But I have a girlfriend, so I am not looking for anything.”
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WHO KNOWS THE MOST ABOUT CARS?
Crawford: “I am not a huge road car guy, so it depends, I know more about race cars and stuff.”
Correa: “I don’t know, I agree with him.”
WHO’S ON THEIR PHONE THE MOST AND WHO TAKES THE LONGEST TO REPLY TO A TEXT?
Correa: “Jak is on the phone the most and I take the longest to reply.”
Crawford: “Feel like we are both pretty good.”
Correa: “Jak spends more time on the phone. He replies quickly to me, and I think I reply quickly to you but not to anyone else.”
Crawford: “When Juan texts me, it’s always an emergency, like what hotel are you are staying at, I need to book it now. What time are you leaving in the morning.”
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST THING YOU’VE LEARNED FROM EACH OTHER?
Crawford: “I’d say the biggest thing is how to be better giving feedback and being a bit more accurate, not waffling on a bit.”
Correa: “For me I’ve learned from him how to drive a car with a bit more understeer, with his driving style. Like I said we have a bit of a different driving style, it still works well with the same car, but there is always a type of corner where I tend to be faster and where he tends to be faster and it is consistently that trend, so I have learned to be a bit more efficient. He is still better than me so I need to keep working at it.”
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WHAT IS ONE THING YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SAY TO THE OTHER BUT HAVEN’T YET?
Correa: “Your seat stinks in the simulator. It smells bad, every time I need to take it out, it grosses me out.”
Crawford: “For me he needs to forget that ghosts are real. He thinks that ghosts are real, and they are not real.”
Correa: “Ghosts are real.”
Crawford: “No, they are not. He thinks he has a ghost in his apartment.”
Correa: “I do. It’s a fact. I have a ghost in my apartment.”
Crawford: “His name is Rudy.”
Correa: “I gave him a nickname and everything. I am actually moving out of the apartment because I cannot get rid of the ghost. Every time I travel it’s fine but every time, I am there with my girlfriend at night he starts touching us. He doesn’t believe me, he doesn’t take me seriously.”
WHO SPENDS THE MOST TIME IN THE GYM AND WHO’S ON THE SIM MORE?
Correa: “Sim definitely Jak because he does Aston Martin sim. Gym, I would say me.”
Crawford: “I think he does a lot longer sessions than me. I think his sessions are three, four hours long.”
Correa: “I spend a lot of time in the gym because also I have to do a lot of specifics for my leg, so it takes a while, so time-wise me.”
WHO WOULD WIN IN AN ARM WRESTLING MATCH?
Correa: “Probably me. We need to do it.”
Crawford: “Okay, but Hadjar beat me last year, so I don’t know.”