If you were being really harsh you could argue that Zane Maloney had a disappointing first season in Formula E.
Zero points is an easy target to start off with but behind that grim fact there is a plethora of positives that the former F2 race winner can take away from his decision to leap into the Formula E paddock at the end of 2024.
Maloney’s promise was clearly evident at both Sao Paulo and Mexico City when the first two races of the season saw him race briefly in the top ten before finishing 12th and then just missing out on being the first Lola driver to make it into the duels in Mexico City. On the latter occasion he was just 0.03s off Edoardo Mortara.
Then there were a mountain of issues and wrong turns almost inevitably made on his side of the garage that affected his races. There were errors on his side too of course, these were expected. It just seemed that the combination of all those problems were particularly cruel.
“It’s been obviously a learning experience, I think, for everyone, with Lola coming in as a new manufacturer and then me as a rookie driver,” Maloney told Formula E Notebook.
“The racing is very tough and the way to go about racing in Formula E is also very different to what you learned growing up, let’s say. So, experience is key in this championship, but I’ve enjoyed gaining experience while learning a lot.
But Maloney also knows that the positives are there to be built on, saying that “the raw pace has been very good” and that “the new tyres for this season, so it’s been a bit of a struggle for everyone, I think, on the grid.
“You see it’s very up and down in terms of qualifying results. I think generally, I’ve gotten much better at the pack style racing. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the season, we had a lot of powertrain penalties and stuff, which meant that a lot of the time we were not in the pack racing, which I wasn’t able to learn as much as I could have.”
One of Maloney’s most promising races was the second event at Berlin where he was executing an off-strategy approach and getting stuck into pack-racing before a Motor Control Unit issue curtailed his progress late on.
“I’ve learned a lot and yes Berlin was a very good race from my side,” said Maloney.
“I’m happy with the progress we’ve made but nothing beats experience in Formula E, so you have to go through that bit of pain to get where you want to go.
“Obviously, in some ways, it’s even more pain because it’s a new team as well. If I was coming into a team that’s already at the front winning races, then the information that I would receive is maybe allows me to go quicker.
“But we’re all going through this process together and happy that I made that decision and happy where we are.”
Why Maloney-Di Grassi Alliance Works
Lucas di Grassi scored all of Lola Yamaha ABT’s 32 points last season but that doesn’t mean the team was completely lopsided in terms of pace and potential. Maloney stacked up reasonably to his much more experienced teammate in qualifying with a 10-6 discrepancy for the Bajan.
But Maloney is mature enough to know that di Grassi, two decades his senior, was able to utilize all his experience immediately and also got the bulk of the early key development work way before Maloney even signed to the new-look team.
“It’s been great having Lucas as a teammate, of course as he’s very experienced,” said Maloney.
“He’s a very quick driver, of course. And he knows how to get the most out of a package, which he has been doing and we’re teammates and we help the team to move forward.”
Maloney is well aware though too that there aren’t many as competitive as the 2016-17 Formula E champion and that inevitably perhaps he was always going to come out on top, points wise at least.
“He’s here for himself too and I’m here for myself in that sense,” added Maloney.
“Lucas isn’t going out of his way to make me quicker than him. That’s just normal in a team.
“I think the relationship we’ve had is perfect in terms of how off-track we’re cool. We go out with the team whenever everyone’s going for dinner or whatever. And then on track, we can still get along as well.
“It’s as good as a relationship within a team can be.”
