Jake Hughes saw his hopes of a maiden GP3 Series victory scuppered by contact during a wet and wild weekend at the Red Bull Ring (July 1-3), as DAMS team-mates Santino Ferrucci and Kevin Jörg found themselves similarly in the wars. Having entered the season's second outing in the thick of the title fight in the official FIA Formula One feeder series, Hughes struggled throughout practice and the first half of qualifying in Austria, but subsequently pulled a rabbit out of the hat to vault up to ninth on the grid for the 24-lap Feature Race. Ferrucci was in close company in tenth and Jörg 19th in the 22-strong field. Hughes fought hard in a contest interrupted by an early Virtual Safety Car period and plagued by a heavy shower six laps from the end. With parts of the circuit extremely treacherous and others remaining dry, the BRDC SuperStar maturely kept his composure to cross the finish line eighth. That earned him the reversed grid pole for Sunday's Sprint Race, which following more torrential rain, began behind the Safety Car due to fears over visibility in the spray. When the action finally got going midway through, the GP3 Series rookie led away only to be tagged by the pursuing Matt Parry, sending the DAMS car into a 360-degree spin from which its driver did well to recover in eighth place. Hughes had climbed back to sixth by the time the Safety Car re-appeared for an incident further down the order, but no sooner had the race re-started than it was neutralised again for another collision, denying the 22-year-old the opportunity to regain any more ground as the clock hit zero. Ferrucci and Jörg, meanwhile, both picked up ten-second penalties in Saturday's race for contact, with the American slipping down the field early on before the pair set about moving forward and got embroiled in a spectacular multi-car scrap just outside the top ten. Despite taking the chequered flag 11th (Jörg) and 12th, the penalties demoted them to 13th and 15th respectively in the final reckoning. The following day, Ferrucci made the most of the few racing laps available to advance to tenth, with team-mate Jörg battling back from a start-line mechanical issue to finish 14th. There will be no respite for the GP3 Series as the championship heads immediately to Silverstone for round three next weekend (July 8-10), with Le Mans-based DAMS sitting fourth in the Teams' classification - just a single point shy of second - and Hughes 4th in the Drivers' table, ahead of Jörg in 10th and Ferrucci in 16th. Jake Hughes (8th/6th) said: "We weren't as strong pace-wise at the Red Bull Ring as we had been in Barcelona. On my first set of tyres in qualifying, we were down the order but on the second set we managed to move up to ninth, which obviously wasn't what we had been aiming for but was a bit of a relief in the circumstances. Being on slick tyres, the rain in the first race was tricky for everyone but finishing eighth secured us the reversed grid pole for Sunday, which was pretty much a non-event. When we finally started, I was in the lead but then got spun round from behind. I feel bad for all the guys in the team because everybody worked really hard over what was a difficult weekend and when we found ourselves in a position to win, it was taken away from us. That was tough, but we have to put it behind us and move on and hopefully we can bounce back quickly at Silverstone." Santino Ferrucci (15th/10th) said: "It was a learning weekend for both myself and the team. We struggled a bit in qualifying and then in race one, I made a mistake at Turn 1 and spun into another car, but my engineer had done a great job to give me a good set-up and we recovered quite well. Race two was wet and unfortunately we completed almost every lap under the Safety Car, so there was very little opportunity to improve from where we started. Overall, it wasn't a great weekend and there is a lot to be learned." Kevin Jörg (13th/14th) said: "That was pretty much a weekend to forget. Having lacked pace in free practice and qualifying, the first race went reasonably well and we finished 11th from 19th, but unfortunately I received a ten-second penalty for something I couldn't really do anything about, which dropped me to 13th. The car then wouldn't fire up at the beginning of race two, so I had to start from the pit-lane and because it was so wet, we spent almost the entire time behind the Safety Car and finished 14th. It definitely wasn't the weekend any of us had wanted, but I think we should be a lot stronger at Silverstone, like we were in Barcelona. I truly believe we have some good inherent pace in this car, so I'm really looking forward to next weekend." François Sicard, Managing Director, said: "That was a tough weekend. When you start on the back foot in GP3, it is always difficult to catch up as there is so little track time. We were down on top speed in free practice which we resolved to some extent in qualifying, but with the drivers all reporting understeer, we were unable to challenge for pole position. In race one, Jake managed the situation well to finish eighth, and Santino could also have been on for a good result but for an accident just after the start. Kevin fought his way through the field, but he was adjudged to be the guilty party in a three-way clash, which saw him pick up a penalty. When race two got underway, Jake asserted himself in the lead but unfortunately on the exit of Turn 1, he spins after a contact with Parry. It was another weekend where Jake scored in both races, but it was still a shame as he had the pace to lead in the rain. Following his race one mistake, San tino did a great job to pull off several good, clean overtaking manoeuvres, while after a mechanical problem on the grid, Kevin climbed up the order to finish 14th. We need to find some speed, but we are now looking forward to Silverstone, which is more of a conventional track and we are confident we will return to the performance level we know the team and all three drivers are capable of."