After the elation of the Round 8 victory in Tokyo, Maserati MSG Racing wasn’t able to repeat their race-winning performance, with Jake Hughes finishing in P18 and yesterday’s winner, Stoffel Vandoorne, unable to complete Round 9 following late-race contact.
With no qualifying yesterday and no threat of rain for today’s race day, Stoffel and Jake knew how important today’s session would be.
Stoffel was out first in Group A and felt comfortable with the car, having made adjustments following FP3. He was ready to put in a strong push lap when Jaguar’s Mitch Evans had a heavy crash into the barriers, bringing a delay to the group stage. Stoffel did all he could, but traffic made the perfect lap impossible to achieve. He missed out on progressing to the duels by half a second.
Jake was in Group B, but it quickly became apparent that tyre temperatures were once again causing him issues. He, too, missed out on progressing to the duels by a narrow margin, the whole group covered by eight-tenths of a second.
Trying to get the most out of the race, the team split strategies. Jake had the bolder early Attack Mode where Stoffel’s race was more measured and following the expected strategy. Jake’s strategy, however, was scuppered by a very late safety car for McLaren’s Taylor Barnard.
Being so late to be deployed, the window to add laps to the race had expired, giving Jake one lap to activate and complete his remaining two minutes of Attack Mode. He had to slow significantly in the final lap to comply with the Attack Mode regulations before taking the chequered flag, dropping him to the bottom of the classified order.
It was an insult added to injury, as Stoffel had come into the pits as the safety car was deployed with heavy damage to his car. Nissan’s Norman Nato had a torque cut as Stoffel had been moving to overtake him, causing the two to have contact. Stoffel was briefly lifted into the air, causing a broken front wing and a puncturee which forced him to retire from the race.
It was not the sign-off to the weekend that Maserati MSG Racing were hoping for after the highs of yesterday. The team’s focus now turns to optimising qualifying performance, aiming to return stronger for the next rounds in Shanghai.
Jake Hughes, Driver, Maserati MSG Racing: Overall, we can only say it’s a successful weekend; any weekend the team gets a win is a successful weekend. Today feels like a missed opportunity, not because we did anything wrong, but because we didn’t maximise qualifying. At the moment, we don’t completely understand this tyre. In Free Practice 3, I was out the front always, around P2, P3, sometimes even P1, confident with the car. Then we put a different set of tyres on for qualifying, and we’re at the back. It's not reflective of the true pace of the car; we’re just missing something in tyre preparation, which we need to understand. In the race, I got to a good place with my strategy, in the points, but unfortunately,y the safety car took away all that hard work. It was too late in the race for me, and I couldn’t fulfill the Attack Mode allocation, so I had to slow down about 60 seconds on the final lap to avoid an Attack Mode infringement penalty. We learnt a lot this weekend, we got a win for the team, so we go into Shanghai with, hopefully, some good momentum.
Stoffel Vandoorne, Driver, Maserati MSG Racing: It was a tough race today, and unfortunately, I didn’t finish. It was an unlucky accident with Norman; he had a power cut out of Turn 8, just as I was on Attack Mode and overtaking him. We had contact, my car took off, which caused a puncture and a broken front wi, which meant I couldn’t make it to the end. I think it would have been a decent race; we could have finished P9 with a couple of points. That would have been nice, probably the maximum we could have done today. We’ve got some work to do, got to improve our qualifying performance because it’s been a little bit up and down. Overall, we left Tokyo with a victory, so we can be proud of that, and looking forward to Shanghai.
Cyril Blais, Team Principal, Maserati MSG Racing: We have to self-reflect on the day, we didn’t do the job in qualifying, so we started too far back. In the race, we split the strategy between our drivers, and they both did their job, and both were up in the top te,n fighting for points. Unfortunately, Stoffel had a race-ending contact, and Jake had the late safety,crw hi,c h neutralised both their strategic advantages. The safety car came one lap too late for Jake - otherwise, he would have been fighting for points. It wasn’t our day today. We did what we had to in the race, now we need to focus and try to understand and maximize one-lap pace because that’s what cost us today.
Maria Conti, Head of Maserati Corse: Today's race finished off an extraordinary weekend in Tokyo. The outcome includes not only a memorable victory, but above all, the outstanding work of the entire team. Every race weekend is an opportunity. From Tokyo, we take home some fundamental lessons to be implemented both off the track and in races, so we can improve in the second part of the season. This country is one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of development and innovation in technology, as well as being a key city within Maserati’s strategy, offering the possibility to meet our customers. Looking ahead, our firm goal remains to keep performance at its peak and to get closer to the leading group so we can improve our results. We bring Maserati’s competitive DNA to every round, taking us closer and closer to our brand’s centenary in motorsport, a milestone to which the countdown has already begun.
Maserati S.p. A.
Maserati produces a complete range of unique cars, immediately recognisable for their extraordinary personality. Thanks to their style, technology, and innately exclusive character, they delight the most discerning, demanding tastes and have always been a benchmark for the global automotive industry. A tradition of successful cars, each of them redefining what makes an Italian sports car in terms of design, performance, comfort, elegance and safety, currently available in more than 70 markets internationally.
The Maserati line-up includes the Grecale, the everyday exceptional SUV, the GranTurismo, the iconic Italian grand tourer, and the GranCabrio, the Trident’s new convertible; all models characterised by the use of the highest quality materials and outstanding technical solutions. A range equipped with 4-cylinder hybrid powertrains – available for Grecale – and V6 petrol, with rear-wheel and four-wheel drive, embodies the performance DNA of the Trident brand. The top of the range is made up of the MC20 super sports car and the MC20 Cielo spyder, powered by the ground-breaking 100% Maserati Nettuno V6 engine, which incorporates F1-derived technologies into the power unit of a standard production car for the first time. The GranTurismo is available with both the high-performance V6 petrol engine, derived from the Nettuno, and a 100% electric version: the GranTurismo Folgore, the first car in the Modena-based brand’s history to adopt this solution. The full-electric range also currently includes the Grecale Folgore, Maserati’s first 100% electric SUV, and the GranCabrio Folgore. Finally, the House of the Trident's latest addition is the Maserati GT2 Stradale, the road-legal version of the GT2 that took Maserati back to the track in closed-wheel championships. The heart of the new super sports car is the V6 Nettuno engine, reaching 640 hp (471 kW) in the latter configuration. The GT2 Stradale is therefore the most powerful road-going Maserati with an internal combustion engine.
The mission at Maserati is to write the future of mobility in the luxury segment, focusing on its customers’ requests. That mission continues to this day, looking ahead to the future and taking Italian luxury all over the world, with Maserati forming part of the Stellantis Dare Forward 2030 strategic plan.
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