Maserati MSG Racing faces challenging start to Season 11 on the streets of São Paulo

An action-packed start to Season 11 saw Maserati MSG Racing narrowly miss out on points, Stoffel Vandoorne crossing the line P11, half a second behind DS PENSKE’s Jean-Eric Verge.

ake Hughes was first to take to the track in qualifying for Group A, looking to find those extra few tenths that would place him in the top four. It was a tightly contested group, but unfortunately Jake could do no better than ninth, placing him P18 on the starting grid. Stoffel had a better run in Group B and was disappointed to miss out on a duels appearance by 0.074s. The hundredths of a second difference placed him ninth on the starting grid. Both Jake and Stoffel had fantastic starts to the São Paulo E-Prix, gaining positions from their starting places and putting pressure on those ahead. Stoffel held off Jaguar’s Nick Cassidy to retain ninth and started setting about a plan to bring the team home points from their first outing together.

Jake’s race came to an abrupt end in the second lap, triggering the first of what would be three caution periods throughout the race. He got tangled in an incident with Lola Yamaha Abt’s Lucas di Grassi, Kiro Race Co’s Dan Ticktum and Andretti’s Nico Mueller. Jake was in the wrong place at the wrong time as di Grassi and Ticktum made contact, causing a concertina effect that saw the Brit pinned into the wall by Mueller at the exit of the Turn 5/6 chicane.

“There was a bit of a traffic jam ahead, three or four cars involved in someone else’s accident actually.” Jake explained of his race-ending collision. “I could see what was approaching in the next corner so I was actually trying to avoid the crash. Unfortunately, one of the other drivers squeezed the driver that I was trying to avoid, and he hit the inside wall which bounced me into the outside and put me in the wall. There’s not much you can do about that kind of incident.”

With the hopes of points from Brazil now solely on his shoulders, Stoffel got to work making waves in the top ten. Taking his first Attack Mode of two minutes as soon as it became available, he was one of the first to show off the power of the upgraded Attack Mode for Season 11, climbing with ease from ninth to third. He was shuffled back down the top ten when his Attack Mode expired, but it was a strong indicator of how important his second deployment would be in securing that points-scoring finish.

With 13 laps of the race completed, Stoffel sat tenth with a similar percent of energy as the leaders. Sitting in the traffic, he was able to use the slipstream and tow of those ahead of him to start doing some energy management, trying to place himself in the best striking position for when he took his remaining four minutes of Attack. The plan seemed to be working as, once again, Stoffel began to climb up the field, but disaster stuck as a red flag was flown for Andretti’s Jake Dennis whose car had gone into red mode. This it was not safe to touch, and a full extraction had to be carried out which neutralised the race. The shame of this was that Stoffel lost his last two minutes of Attack Mode to the red flag, unable to gain as many positions as hoped and stuck in the middle of the top ten with those behind him still due to take their final Attacks.

On the restart, Stoffel took back to the grid in P7, but being down on energy to those around him he had little in the line of defence off the line. He managed to hold onto tenth until the second red flag came out for an incident between DS PENSKE’s Max Guenther, Cassidy and Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein, but on the second restart he found himself in a battle with the DS PENSKE’s, still trying to save on energy consumption.

Being the only one with an Attack Mode left, Envision’s Sebastien Buemi carved through the lower half of the top ten, relegating Stoffel outside of the points. A post-race penalty for Nissan's Morman Nato promoted Stoffel to P10, resulting in Maserati MSG Racing's first points on the board for Season 11. Whilst it was a disappointing end to what had begun as a promising race, it has given Maserati MSG Racing a lot of positives and learnings to take into the rest of the season.

Jake Hughes - Driver - Maserati MSG Racing

“I think we’ve understood a lot from the car in a different condition, different track layout. A lot more [learning] about the straight-line braking, straight line traction [in] much hotter conditions than we had in testing. We learnt a lot of lessons this weekend that should help us in the season going forward. To be honest, even though it was a short race for me, the car felt quite strong, and, I think, looking at where some of the [other cars ended] I think we could have had a good race.

Stoffel Vandoorne - Driver - Maserati MSG Racing

“It’s been a challenging [weekend]. First of all, been a little bit on the backfoot through the practice sessions, qualifying – not really quite in tune with the car. It’s been a little bit of a struggle in that regard. But I was confident in delivering a good race, anything is possible in Formula E; I think we’ve seen that again today. It was a very dynamic race; we decided to attack early and spend the energy early because of the battery concerns, which we managed to do, we got into third place. But from then on, our race started to spiral downwards. Especially the red flags hurt us quite a lot on the energy targets. In the end it was just about surviving and bringing the car [home].”

Cyril Blais - Team Principal - Maserati MSG Racing

“It hasn’t been the start we wanted. I think in qualy we were OK; Stoffel just missed the duel by the slightest margin, and in the race there was a lot of action. Jake was very unfortunate because he got pushed out against the wall, there was nothing he could have done, so his race finished very early and no mileage for him. There is always learning that can be had in the race so that’s very unfortunate for him, and not a good thing. For Stoffel, he was fighting and hovering around the points. In the end it just didn’t go our way. We didn’t even get the points to start scoring. A lot happened, but I think we need to be realistic as well and if we take all those facts away, we have to look at our pure pace and I think we’re lacking. There’s a lot of work to be done, a lot of data to go through and a lot to improve for the next race, but I’m sure we can turn it around and be in a good scoring position.”

Maria Conti - Head of Maserati Corse

“Returning for a new season of racing is always a mix of emotions. Today, unfortunately the result was not what we were hoping for. The way the race played out wasn't easy, but we’re still happy to be back. The Formula E championship is a natural choice for Maserati, and we want to face up to Season 11 with new energy. Competing in the top electric series is the symbol of our commitment to zero-emission mobility. It is a major international stage to meet our customers in city centres, including with the Folgore range. This weekend in particular, we were celebrating the 110th anniversary of our iconic brand and it was an honour to have a special celebratory logo on the livery of the Tipo Folgore to remind us of our extraordinary racing heritage and drive us towards new successes. We have a long season ahead of us and we want to express our performance-oriented DNA to the fullest, battling to be in the leading group.”