ALEX Lynn admits he will have to regroup to strengthen his GP2 Series title bid after a "tough weekend" at the latest round in Azerbaijan.

The 22-year-old racing driver from Dunmow headed to the debut showing of the street circuit in Baku sitting third in the GP2 standings after impressive displays at the first two rounds of the season in Barcelona and Monaco.

Lynn, who is also development driver with the Williams Martini Racing Formula One team, is keen to ensure a progression into F1 next year and knows winning this year's GP2 title with the DAMS Racing team would help his cause.

So he was disappointed to come away with no points from his two races in Baku and having slipped to sixth in the championship standings.

However, seeing title rivals also slip up and having potentially strong rounds coming up meant Lynn was staying positive about his chances this year.

Lynn added: "By a stroke of luck, everyone else who scored well over the opening two rounds had a bad weekend in Baku, so although I’ve dropped to sixth in the championship I’m still only 13 points off the lead.

"No-one’s gained; no one’s lost.

"I’m 99 per cent sure we’ll be properly rapid over the next few rounds, so we just need to regroup because the championship is massively up in the air."

The Dunmow man said his problems started from the opening free practice session in the Azerbaijan capital as it became clear that the set-up of his DAMS car wasn't where it needed to be for a first-ever visit to the testing city circuit.

He said: "In this championship you don’t recover from that sort of thing - we were playing catch-up all weekend.

"As a racing driver, you know if what you’ve got underneath you is good enough, so sometimes even if you’ve not set a good time you can be confident heading into qualifying.

"But for me and my team-mate, Nicholas Latifi, it was a difficult start that never really got better."

Lynn was only able to qualify 13th for the feature race, with Latifi one place behind him, and things didn't improve on the run to the first corner as the pair got caught up in collisions with other cars and both had to retire just seconds into the race.

A retirement meant a start from the back of the grid for the sprint race and although Lynn moved up to ninth at the finish, he left with no points from the two events.