Zane Maloney bettered his qualifying result from yesterday, making the duels again and starting in P6
Team now looking to build on these improvements in pace and convert them into points in the race
It’s been a positive weekend for Lola Yamaha ABT in Berlin, with stronger pace leading to the team making it into the duels for the second race in a row.
Once again the team showed positive pace in FP3 in 300kW, with Zane fifth and Lucas tenth. In qualifying, Zane made the duels for the second time in a row after finishing P3 in Group B. He was knocked out in the quarter final by Joel Eriksson (Envision Racing) and lined up on the grid in P6. Lucas finished P8 in the same group as Zane meaning he started in P15.
In the first couple of corners Zane dropped down a couple of places with Lucas making it up to P13 while both looked to optimise position to save energy. Zane took Attack Mode on lap 13 and during the four minutes of extra power he made his way from P17 up to P6. As the pace of the race increased, both drivers dropped back through the field. Zane took his final boost of power in the final laps but was unable to make up many places which was further impacted by a short safety car, crossing the line in P17. Meanwhile Lucas took both of his Attack Mode stints in the final third of the race but ultimately finished in P16.
Lucas di Grassi, #11: “Overall we showed good pace in some moments of the weekend, so going out with zero points again is frustrating but we will keep on pushing to make improvements. Monaco is my home race and it will be my 14th time racing there. I will give it my best and hopefully be able to score some points for Lola.”
Zane Maloney, #22: "Amazing job by the team again to get us into the duels and end qualifying one place better than yesterday in P6, so I’m very, very happy with that. I think the hard work behind the scenes from both the team and myself is really being noticed in qualifying and we’ve performed very well in that aspect in the last four races, starting in the top 10 each time, so everyone is doing a great job. However, in the race we struggled. The strategy was good in the way we approached the race but when the pace of the race sped up we weren’t able to keep up. Of course, it’s very difficult coming in halfway through a car generation and now we’re starting towards the front we can notice that more but the fact we’re in that position is a very good positive to take compared to six months ago. We look forward to continuing to improve and finish further up the grid.”
Mark Preston, Team Principal, Lola Yamaha ABT: “Overall it's been a very positive weekend for the team, making into the duels twice and running at the front yesterday. Unfortunately, today we were unable to convert the qualifying pace into results in the race but we will now use the time until Monaco to take what we’ve learnt in the race here to make improvements”
The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship continues in Monaco on May 16th and 17th for rounds 9 and 10 of Season 12.
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