Wet and windy conditions in Tokyo led to a challenging race and a lack of points for Lola Yamaha ABT.
• First race in Tokyo was impacted by inclement weather, resulting in the cancellation of qualifying
• After starting towards the back of the grid, Zane finished the team’s home race in 16th with Lucas finishing just behind him in 17th
• Lola Yamaha ABT hoping to return stronger and score points in front of the home crowd tomorrow
Wet and windy conditions in Tokyo led to a challenging race and a lack of points for Lola Yamaha ABT.
After the inclement weather led to the cancellation of qualifying, the grid was decided by the standings for FP2. Therefore, Zane Maloney and Lucas di Grassi started in 16th and 18th respectively.
The changing weather conditions, red flag and pit boost led to an unpredictable race where the team unfortunately failed to score points as Zane finished in 16th and Lucas in 17th.
Lucas di Grassi, #11
“It was a frustrating day today with qualifying being cancelled. We started towards the back of the grid and fought our way to the midfield but unfortunately we didn’t manage to score points. However, with another race tomorrow which we hope is dry, we reset and try to make all the support from our friends from Yamaha here in Japan count and make them proud.”
Zane Maloney, #22
“The team’s first race in Tokyo was quite disappointing. We had very good pace in FP2 in the 300kW laps, which we focused on during the session and therefore didn’t run any laps in 350kW. Unfortunately, qualifying didn’t happen which meant we took our FP2 positions for the grid and started quite far back. In the race, we struggled for a little bit of pace in general when it mattered. With another race tomorrow that might be dry, we can hopefully we have a more positive home race for Yamaha.”
Mark Preston, Motorsport Director, Lola Cars said
“It’s been a tough day for us and not the result we would have wanted at the home race of our technical partner, Yamaha. Despite good pace in 300kW in FP2, the lack of running in the higher power setting meant when the session was used to set the grid we started towards the back and with the challenging on-track positions it was very hard to make up places. We will come back tomorrow stronger and even more focused on scoring points in front of the fantastic Japanese fans.”
Thomas Biermaier, CEO, ABT
“We had a good start to the day with quite a decent performance in FP2. Zane was third quickest in 300kW but then with the cancellation of qualifying it was a difficult position for us to start in, making it impossible to score points. We saw only one driver who started out of the top 10 on the grid finish in the points, all the others struggled like we did. Tomorrow is a new day which we expect to be dry so – maximum attack.”
The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship continues tomorrow for the second Tokyo E-Prix of the weekend.
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