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Just as Charles Dickens surmised in the opening passage of A Tale of Two Cities, Races One and Two at the 2023 Diriyah E-Prix couldn’t have been more different.
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ is how the novel starts, yet through hard work and resilience, Maserati MSG Racing’s weekend was underpinned by a clear narrative of improvement.
From the bitter lows of Friday to biting back with our first points of the season on Saturday, our lessons were crucial, and will continue to shape the steps we take in the current campaign.
Using insights from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Team Principal, James Rossiter, debriefs and breaks down the finer details of the first double-header of Season 9.
“On the whole, Diriyah was quite a difficult weekend for us as a team, but I think that there are still positives that we can take,” explains James.
“With the crashes in qualifying, Max’s DNS [Did Not Start], and Edo’s retirement from the race, Friday was especially hard on everyone.
“Situations like that are rare in motorsport, but when it does happen, it’s cruicial to bounce back, and everyone came back fighting.
“The energy, commitment, and dedication shown by the team in such a difficult scenario was incredible, and we’re immensely proud of them.”
Following the lows of Friday, which was succeeded by a lengthy car build into the early hours of the morning, performance was revitalised in Race Two, with drivers, Edoardo Mortara and Maximilian Günther, both starting inside the top 10.
“In comparison, our performance on Saturday was much better and we showed clear improvements from Race One to Race Two, especially in qualifying,” continues James.
“In the race, we had a few difficulties but it’s the long-run pace that we’re still trying to unlock, and this comes down to how unique the Gen3 car is.
“Firstly, the car has a lot of power and a lot of torque, but it doesn’t have the mechanical grip and downforce to match, which makes it challenging to manage and control.
“On Saturday, understeer was one of the key difficulties we had to face, and that brought its own complications, especially in the second half of the race.
“If we can get on top of that and improve the minimum speed we take into each corner, we will be able to useless energy overall which will improve our efficiency and energy consumption.
“That, alongside the Safety Car and our strategy, influenced our performance in Race Two.
“It’s very difficult to overtake in Riyadh, and with data and real-time insights from HPE from Race One, we knew that it was very important to prioritise our track position when activating Attack Mode.
“In the early stages, due to the understeer, we found that it was difficult to open the gap we needed, but when the Safety Car bunched up the field, it became even more challenging to find that gap.
“During this window, our competitors were able to save a lot of energy and therefore, had more to spend.
“At the restart, the racing was pretty much flat-out, and this meant that the advantage we had with Attack Mode was much smaller than usual.
“Without the Safety Car, I think our strategy would have worked extremely well.”
Despite the complications caused by the Safety Car, the team held on until the very end and took the chequered flag to score its first points of the season.
“Edo was very unfortunate to lose eighth on the final lap, but we showed clear tenacity recovering from avery tough Friday, so taking points on Saturday is a good achievement,” adds James.
“There’s no doubt that we still have a lot of work to do but we know that it will get better. We need to stay calm, remain focussed, and most importantly, remember that we’re making progress.
“For India, we need to build on our momentum and trust the process – it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
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