Yahoo Autos Maserati MSG’s Blais hoping new FE line-up is the ticket to title contention
New Maserati MSG team principal Cyril Blais is hoping his team can step up to become championship contenders with its new driver lineup.
Under the guise of the legendary Italian brand, the former Venturi team has secured two wins over the last two seasons, with Maximilian Guenther triumphing in Jakarta in 2022-23 and Tokyo last season. Guenther has moved to sister Stellantis team DS Penske for this season, with 2021-22 champion Stoffel Vandoorne moving in the other direction, and highly-rated youngster Jake Hughes joining from NEOM McLaren in place of the departed Jehan Daruvala.
The team has shown to be competitive on occasion, but with its fresh driver pairing, Blais thinks the team can make another step forwards.
“Like every team up and down the pitlane, we want to be in the fight – no one is here to make up the numbers,” he said. “But winning a Formula E race is no easy challenge, especially with the style of racing that we’ve seen develop over recent seasons. With our milestone victories in Jakarta and Tokyo we demonstrated that we have what’s needed to reach the top spot on the podium but contending championships means more than winning races. You need consistency, you need stamina, strategic skill, team play, and you need more than a little luck.
“Our driver line-up is one of the strongest on the grid. Stoffel and Jake have really impressed us in recent years, you don’t win a World Championship title by accident. Jake’s one lap pace has been formidable, now we need to work on our race craft. We are hopeful and we are determined, we just need to put all the pieces together when it comes to qualifying and the races.”
Maserari, along with the entire Formula E paddock, has had its preparations for the upcoming season impacted by devastating floods in Spain which have forced the four-day pre-season test to be moved from Valencia to Jarama and postponed by a day. With the new GEN3 Evo formula coming into play this season, testing is even more vital.
“For various reasons, testing in Formula E is really limited so we need to make the absolute most of every opportunity we get to run our cars,” he said. “Especially when we have a generation change as we do now from GEN3 to GEN3 Evo. Not only has the car changed, but we have a new tyre compound to contend with which should improve grip during races.
“The circuits we test at aren’t exactly typical of Formula E street circuits, we have an updated car, new tyres and an all-new driver line-up to test so there’s still plenty of work for us to do there. We’ve also never tested at Jarama before so that adds in an additional element of challenge and discovery but it’s the same for all the teams.”
Blais may be wary of the disruption, but he is still positive of the team’s position ahead of testing, which begins on Tuesday.
“As team principal, my priority is to make sure that each person in the team has the optimal working environment to do the best possible job,” he said. “In a motorsport team in a rapidly evolving championship, this is always going to be a work in progress. We have done a lot of work in the background between the season finale in London and now and we have also welcomed some exceptional new people to the team so I’m looking forward to seeing everyone working together at the track and to making sure that the chemistry and team dynamic is right.
“Performance on track is directly impacted by team culture, in motorsport, you need to make split second decisions and people feel most comfortable and confident to do this when they are working in a calm and trusting environment. Testing plays a huge role in creating this dynamic as we can run lots of different simulations and scenarios to give us an idea of how different situations might pan out during the season.”
