Double Points from Shanghai
With two races over the weekend, Maximilian Günther went into the Shanghai EPrix event with eyes on adding more points to his championship campaign. Finishing in the top ten in both events guaranteed that, with mixed results and the weather coming in to have an impact on his overall results.
After a challenging start to the weekend in FP1, DS PENSKE and Maximilian came back ready to fight on Saturday, finding great pace in the second practice session. Something that Maximilian was able to take with him into qualifying, getting into the duels and almost into the final. The P4 start position put him in a great place to be able to play the strategy how he wanted in the Pit Boost race.
It started very successfully, with Maximilian battling hard with the front runners and staying in championship contention. But the deployment timing of coming in for Pit Boost saw Maximilian lose a lot of places and have to fight harder than was ideal to get back to the front of the grid. He did everything he could, but the strategy was against him. Maximilian managed to take points away from the first race of the weekend and was hopeful of another strong performance on Sunday.
Sunday, however, the rain rolled in and mixed up the field once again. Despite having great pace at the beginning of the session, Maximilian couldn’t quite find the tenth of a second needed to progress into the qualifying duels. Without the Pit Boost, it was going to be all about how and when to deploy the two Attack Modes to get back to the front of the grid.
The field split, with front runners taking their Attacks earlier and those in the other half of the grid, going for a conserve and attack approach. Maximilian was in a good place, managing his energy well and ready to deploy his Attacks to pass the now energy conserving cars ahead of him. His first Attack Mode saw him make good progress, on the periphery of points and ready to use his second to propel himself up the field.
A late race full course ran spoils to that plan, giving those ahead who were conserving a bit of a break in terms of how much management they needed to do. Maximilian once again was in the points, but it was a few less than he had been hoping for with his conserve and attack approach to the race.
Overall a strong race for Maximilian and the team, showing off what the car can do in all weather.
Next up, Maximilian and FIA Formula E head to Tokyo for another double header. Maximilian will be hoping momentum swings in his direction to optimise on the promise of the DS PENSKE package and close out the last few rounds of the season on a high.
RESULTS
Free Practice 1 – P19, 1:11:124
Free Practice 2 – P5, 1:09:147
Qualifying – P4 (Duels, Semi Finals, 1:09:188)
Race – P9
Free Practice 3 – P7, 1:18:078
Qualifying – P11 (Group A, P6, 1:17:418)
Race – P10
Championship Standing – P18 (21 points)
MAXIMILIAN GÜNTHER
“It was a really positive weekend despite only having a few points from it. I felt great with the car throughout the event and felt that, with a bit of momentum on our side we could have come away with more points. Always a bit disappointing to not come away with more, but I am happy with how this weekend unfolded.
“Already in FP2 we made a step in a really good direction, and I was feeling really good in the car that we mananged to improve for qualy. Really maximised in the group stages and got the most and the best out of our package. It was a great qualy, great performance and great to start on the second row. The race was really good with many positives. Right from the start there was a lot of hard and good racing and we certainly did a very good job here. I had track position very nicely keeping up with the strong cars around us and energy was good. Definitely put ourselves into a good position heading into the pit stop window.
Even in the part of the race that it rain I had very good pace, felt very good out there, very racy. Obviously, and this is what defined our race, the pit stop window lost us many places. That’s why I was P12 after the Pit Boost. That’s certainly what we need to look into, to understand what exactly went wrong to lose those places.
“Into Sunday and I felt really good again with the car, even in the wet weather. In FP3 and qualy I was very fast and had the pace to be top three. It wasn’t always clear to see because everyone was trying different things on different tyres. That pace is what you saw in qualifying as well.
I was really flying at the start of the session, P1, P2, but as the track was drying out, I lost pace relative to the others. In the end, it was the decision ahead of the session to got for a full wet set up that saw us unable to progress to the duels. The weather has been a bit of a lottery so it was a coin flip decision, but when the sun came out we were very much in the wrong set up. At the same time I still felt fast with a great pace.
“At the start of the race we didn’t quite have the pace which was a bit of a surprise considering the race started wet, but as the track was getting dry it was basically the opposite to what we had in qualifying. We got faster through the race and saved our two Attack Modes for the end.
That as the way to go for us; to be patience and bring ourselves into a good position, managing energy at the beginning of the race to be able to attack at the end. It was very clear for us that the basis of a good race would be to go for a strong charge in the last period of the race. A bit unlucky with the full course yellow at the end and losing some of my Attack otherwise I think I could have gained a few more places.
“A double points finish for us off this good, solid, positive weekend. Definitely showing good pace in all conditions. The momentum didn’t always fall on our side, for sure, but that’s racing.
“Tokyo is an amazing place and I love it. I have good memories from there and it’s going to be a night race this year which is amazing. Going to be a spectacle. The goal is to finish the season on a high and I’ve got a good feeling about that. We’ll be in full push mode from now all the way to the season final.”