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The Swiss Italian is a veteran of our sport, and as he prepares for the first public on-track appearance of our Season 9 challenger, the Maserati Tipo Folgore, gives the lowdown on what to expect for pre-season testing.
“I completely agree. We are at the beginning of a brand-new generation for Formula E. The work that has been going on during the break since the end of Season 8 will impact every team’s performance and will shape the running order for nearly the next four years. In motorsport, starting on the right foot makes life easier and this winter break is more important than ones in recent years. The work that is being done is very important, but our work from past seasons has been crucial and gave us the possibility to be competitive. A lot of it depends on the problems that a team is facing, but positive winter breaks and tests and definitely change performance trajectory.”
“It’s very different. Gen3 really showcases the progress of electric vehicle technology and it’s definitely a step forward in comparison to the Gen2 car. The car will be more efficient, lighter, and more powerful, which is cool to see, but the technical solutions being used are definitely a step forward as well. Because the car is more advanced, it’s definitely more difficult to set up, especially at this early stage just because there are a lot of different things to discover. The front powertrain is completely new and this means that regen is very different, but we have a very talented team of engineers which should work in our favour.”
“There are many different stages that a vehicle goes through during its life. At the beginning, you have new things to discover and quite quickly, you can start to understand the direction to go in and how to extract the maximum performance and competitiveness out of the car. Then, the last stage is about fine-tuning and refining. Because Gen3 is new, like everyone, we are in the phase of understanding the bigger picture of what works and what doesn’t. In Formula E, a car’s development can be divided in two – the hardware, which manufacturers homologate before the season, and then the software, which is the bigger part for development. There are millions of solutions with the software, and engineers spend hours analysing data in order to optimise our systems, but this is often the trickiest part. Because the car is new, we need to find pioneering solutions and there is space to be innovative because the technology is so young. Once the best solutions have been identified, we then start to fine-tune.”
“Yes,it is. When you are in the early initial phases of developing a new generation car, your input, in my opinion, is extremely important, because it will guide the development direction that the team and engineers go in. As a driver, you can highlight what is working, what isn’t working, and what can be optimised and improved. Honing that performance by working closely with the team is something that I find rewarding and enjoy.”
“A successful, promising pre-season test is quite simple to identify. Firstly, you want to be competitive in push laps, which is what we do in qualifying, and secondly, you want to be competitive in target laps, which is what we do in races. You want good reliability and especially with a new car, this is very important. Even if you are quick, with poor reliability there is very little that you will be able to achieve. Valencia will be a good benchmark to examine our performance and to start looking at our competitors. We have worked very hard during this break, and if we can keep doing what we have been doing, I know that we can be competitive and refine our package further when the season starts in Mexico.”
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