A challenging weekend for Lola Yamaha ABT yields positive learnings for further development

After showing initial positive performance, Maloney narrowly missed out on the duels, starting the race in 9th, while Di Grassi qualified 17th. Issues in the opening lap led to Maloney dropping several places before crossing the line in 15th. Di Grassi also suffered technical issues and when an unfortunately timed safety car meant he didn’t complete the mandatory Attack Mode sessions, he ultimately finished in 20th place.

It was a challenging race for the team despite showing initial positive pace, with lots of learnings to take into the next race in Jeddah.

Lucas Di Grassi, said: “It was frustrating given that we had a positive start to the weekend with P6 in FP1 and we were competitive. We then unfortunately had hardware problems in qualifying and the race which compromised the weekend. We are going to ensure we understand the problems we had, and work to solve them as we head into the next race in Jeddah.”

Zane Maloney, commented: “We started the day positively qualifying 9th to give us a good start position for the race. I was very happy with the team’s job and how I performed. However, during the race we had some issues which meant we lost a few places and it was very difficult from there to make up positions. We will now look forward to Jeddah and work on how we improve as a team and how I continue to improve as a driver.”

Mark Preston, Motorsport Director at Lola Cars, added: “Zane showed good pace in qualifying landing us in the top 10 for the first time as a new team. It’s a super competitive field and the race threw us a number of challenges that impacted our performance. We will regroup before the next race and we will continue to develop and improve.”

Thomas Biermaier, CEO of ABT, continued: “It was a really hard weekend but as a new team we expect to face some challenges. We did have some positives such as a good qualifying with Zane but we also see we have a lot to do before the next race. We will never give up, will stick together as a team and will back stronger.”

The team’s next outing will come in the new year, when Rounds 3 and 4 of the championship takes place in the new location of Jeddah on January 14th and 15th.