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Jake Hughes
Free Practice Three // P12
Qualifying // P13 [1:57.181, P7 Group A]
Race // P17
Positions Gained // -4
Fastest Lap // 1:37.906
Championship Position // P11 [27 points]
Stoffel Vandoorne
Free Practice Three // P8
Qualifying // P5 [1:49.238, Quarter Final Duel]
Race // P10
Positions Gained // -5
Fastest Lap // 1:38.526
Championship Position // P15 [19 points]
Maserati MSG Racing Championship Position // P8 [46 points]
With learnings from yesterday’s E-Prix, Maserati MSG Racing were raring to go for their second home race. Unfortunately, rain in qualifying and another mixed race meant that the points haul taken from the weekend was below what was expected.
The day started off well with both Jake Hughes and Stoffel Vandoorne feeling like progress had been made overnight. With the experiences of Round Six fresh in the mind, both drivers were ready to challenge Round Seven on the streets of Monaco.
Rain came to ruin the party in qualifying, shaking up everybody’s strategies. Stoffel handled the wet conditions superbly, taking third in Group B to progress into the duels. Jake did all he could, but rear locking in Turn 8 saw him miss a duels appearance by four tenths of a second.
It was Stoffel versus old DS PENSKE teammate Vergne in the third quarter final duel. Stoffel put everything into his 350kW push lap, but it wasn’t enough to beat the Frenchman. He was the fastest of those relegated in the quarter finals, however, which gave him a solid fifth place on the starting grid.
Qualifying is always important in Monaco, due to the nature of the track making overtaking challenging, but with the Monaco E-Prix being a low energy consumption race, it becomes even more important. This remained the case even without Pit Boost in Round 7.
Due to this factor, Jake’s impressive ability of being able to conserve energy through the first half of the race to have an energy advantage in the closing stages became null and void. Even Stoffel struggled to optimise an energy preservation strategy within the top ten, unable to stick with the leading pack. Tyre temperatures affected what could be extracted from the Maserati Tipo Folgore in the race, with the grip not where either driver expected it to be.
It was a quiet race for both Jake and Stoffel, with the only drama being contact between Jake and CUPRA Kiro’s Beckmann. Jake was handed a five second penalty for the collision, but due to other penalties around him and the 20s+ gap behind him to Jaguar’s Evans at the chequered flag, his position was unaffected.
Maserati MSG Racing will use the next few weeks to study why we faced such challenges in Monaco, asset the data and make sure we come back stronger for the next double header in Tokyo.
Jake Hughes, Driver, Maserati MSG Racing: “It’s easy to look back after the fact and see what could have been done better. Maybe we were a bit in the middle with our timing of the first Attack Mode, not early but not late, which didn’t give us much advantage when in 350kw. But tyre grip was where I struggled the most. In the penultimate lap, we managed to back off and do the warmup we would do in qualifying. Usually, you don’t get a chance to do that in a race scenario, but we found it helped because the pace came back on the last lap and we almost got fastest lap. We need to understand what it was that made keeping tyre temperatures up so difficult today so we can learn and build on it ahead of the next two races in Tokyo.”
Stoffel Vandoorne, Driver, Maserati MSG Racing: “I’m a little disappointed with the outcome of the whole weekend. Race one we struggled a little bit in qualifying but had a decent race, then race two we had a much better qualifying in tricky conditions in the wet. Starting from fifth, I thought we were going to be in good shape to really fight it out at the front, but it just felt very difficult from the start. I struggled with pace, couldn’t really move through the pack, we just had to run our own race and bring home as much as we could. P10, one point again, but we need to learn from this and come back stronger.”
Cyril Blais, Team Principal, Maserati MSG Racing: “Not a good weekend for us with a lack of performance in general in both qualifying and the race. It feels like we take one step forwards but then two steps back, so in the end it's not good enough, especially at our home race. It is a shame because we know that the Maserati Tipo Folgore and the team is capable of much more than has been shown over the last two days. To go into the race P5 and P12 and end P10 and P17 is not the outcome we want. The best we can do right now is to step back and regroup. Luckily, we're racing in two weeks so we can put things right as early as possible and keep our eye in the game. Tonight we'll sleep on it, then tomorrow we'll be back in the office and back at work to prepare for Tokyo.”
Maria Conti, Head of Maserati Corse: “It’s been a weekend full of emotions. It was extraordinary to revive the competitive spirit of our DNA on the roads of the most iconic and famous street circuit in the world. Seeing our cars in Monaco is a unique feeling as to begin the celebrations to lead up to next year’s commemoration of Maserati first 100 years in motor racing. We're taking home a whole lot of valuable lessons from this double header and we’re proud of the hard work and dedication shown by our drivers and team. Now we're going to push ahead with our goal: to express our performance-oriented DNA to the fullest, battling to be in the leading group.”
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