The Notebook: Cape Town

Get the inside line on Cape Town with insights powered by Hewlett Packard Enterprise

As a city, Cape Town is built on hope and as Maserati MSG Racing heads to South Africa for the very first time, aspirations are high for the fifth race of Season 9.

The venue is the second of four new circuits in the 2023 campaign and marks the mid-way point in the World Championship’s current run of racing on new tracks.

Like Hyderabad, the field’s footing is evenly placed, and strong preparations coupled with consistent running will likely lead to the best results when the lights go out on Saturday.

Maserati MSG Racing’s Racing Director, Jérémy Colançon, is a well-placed paddock authority, and has been present in Formula E since the series’ very first race.

He’s a four-time World Champion, a two-time Engineer of the Year Award winner, and using insights from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, highlights every aspect of performance for the inaugural Cape Town E-Prix.

Preparation: Although the results didn’t match, we showed very good pace in Hyderabad. From the tyres to the car balance, and the energy efficiency, we worked very hard to improve all aspects of performance and made positive steps in qualifying and the race. Our processes show that we can adapt well to new circuits as a team and hopefully, we will be able to maintain that momentum at another new track this weekend.

Energy Management: Cape Town is a very energy sensitive circuit, meaning that there will be a lot of energy saving during the race. The track has a lot of high-speed corners, which make it more difficult to recover energy in an efficient way, but the key places for management will be in Turns Four, Five, Seven, and 11.

Car Setup: Cape Town is very different to any other circuit we have raced on so far this season, so it will be important to make sure that we have a strong car setup. There are a lot of high-speed corners throughout the track, so having a good car in this section will be crucial. Performing well in these areas will facilitate opportunities to overtake cars in the race, especially in Turns Four, Five, Seven and 11 in particular.

Safety Cars: The Safety Car has appeared in every race this season, and also in the past seven events, which is a record for Formula E. Each time we have a Safety Car, our energy targets per lap increase, which means that we have more energy to spend and therefore, a wider window to execute our strategy. With real-time data-led insights from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, we have improved adaptability and flexibility during races to over consume, safe in the knowledge that we can recover spent energy at a later stage.

Attack Mode: As we have seen so far this season, Attack Mode offers a smaller performance advantage than before. Not only is the length of Attack Mode shorter – down from eight minutes to four – but the additional power is much more difficult to use at the rear under acceleration. Because there is a smaller chance of making an overtake, it is also important to prioritise track position when activating. This will be important to consider this weekend.