Lola Yamaha ABT looks ahead to final round in London after challenging first race in the capital

It was a very difficult day for Lola Yamaha ABT at the ExCeL exhibition centre in London, with challenges and struggles for pace. However, these challenges have enabled the team to identify improvement areas to continue to progress as it heads into its second season in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Free Practice was challenging, with a wiring issue in FP1 which meant Lucas stopped on track twice, while both drivers struggled for pace in the practice sessions and qualifying, each finishing P11 in their respective groups.

After starting the race at the back of the grid, the two sides of the garage tried different strategies to try to make up places. Unfortunately, a technical issue for Zane led to him retiring with just a few laps remaining. Meanwhile, a late safety car meant Lucas was not able to use all of his remaining six minutes of Attack Mode leading to a ten second penalty, on top of a five second penalty for crossing the pit lane exit line, leading to him ultimately finishing in P17.

Lucas di Grassi, #11: “It was a tough day for us. We had an issue yesterday in FP1 which meant we were not able to get as much mileage in so the data for today was limited. We tried different things for qualifying which didn’t work out but then in the race we had a very good start from 21st to 15th. We did the best we could and had good energy and good pace up to half of the race but then some decisions we made really compromised our race. For us to score at the moment we need to be perfect, and today we weren’t perfect.”

Zane Maloney, #22: “It’s been a very difficult day for us as a team. We were struggling for pace in general and obviously we had a few things happen in the race that caused us to be further back in the field before an issue resulted in a DNF at the end. It was very unfortunate but we will see what the problems are tonight and I’m looking forward to tomorrow and seeing if we can turn things around. I have one more race with the team for this season and then it’s full focus on next season. I’m always motivated and ready to perform and hopefully I can give the team something back for their hard work tomorrow.”

Mark Preston, Motorsport Director, Lola Cars said: “It has been a very challenging day for the team. However, a big positive we can take away is that we identified something in Berlin which hampered performance which has now been validated here in London. We now know what we need to address to improve performance ahead of Season 12 and continue to progress as a team.”

Thomas Biermaier, CEO, ABT: “We’ve really struggled for pace in all sessions today and clearly this isn’t how we want to finish the season. We are now turning our full focus to tomorrow when we will hopefully have a better performance as the team really deserves another race with some points after all the hard work they’ve put in."

The final round of Season 11 of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship takes place at London’s ExCel exhibition centre tomorrow, with the race starting at 17:05 BST.
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