Following a promising pre-season test in Valencia in late 2023, the Monaco-based team visited Mexico’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez with quiet confidence and took a measured approach throughout practice.
Initial data collection on Friday yielded a performance improvement for Saturday, and after posting the second-fastest time in FP2, Max carried his speed forward into qualifying by leading the way in Group B.
In the Quarter-Finals, the German racer unfortunately lost out to Mitch Evans but due to a grid penalty for the New Zealander and his Jaguar team-mate, Nick Cassidy, Max advanced to third on the starting grid.
Team-mate, Jehan Daruvala, meanwhile qualified 17th as the 25-year-old continued to build and expand his knowledge of electric motorsport as the only rookie on Formula E’s 2024 grid.
The duo enjoyed a competitive start to the race and maintained their starting positions in the opening phase before Full Course Yellow and subsequent Safety Car on lap nine, caused by an accident for Robin Frijns, neutralised the race.
On lap 11’s restart, Max and Jehan continued to hold third and 17th, but during his final Attack Mode activation, Max unfortunately lost track position to Cassidy, falling to fourth.
Despite taking maximum advantage of the 350kW power mode, and a small energy advantage, Max kept pace with but was unable to overtake the Kiwi, and narrowly missed out on the podium.
Jehan, meanwhile, finished 16th with a late overtake on ERT’s Dan Ticktum, to complete his debut in World Championship motorsport – only the third Indian driver in history to do so.
Formula E’s 10th season will continue in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, for the first double-header event of the campaign on 26-27 January 2024.
Leave a Reply