As debut seasons go, Zane Maloney’s in 2025, were never going to illuminate the record books. As a rookie with Lola Yamaha ABT, essentially Formula E’s freshest entry, the F2 graduate was not only a fact-finding mission but also one with a team that was also finding its collective feet.
Yet, at the same time, at this level of international racing the patience can also wear quite thin if hard results don’t start to come. When does promise to translate to performance and performance to end product. That means points.
Maloney didn’t achieve any last season and that was clearly a disappointment, especially when his teammate achieved 32 of them. It was by no means the biggest discrepancy between teammates because Nissan, Jaguar, McLaren and Envision had far higher ones in terms of gulf of collation.
But it would be a major surprise if it happened again in Maloney’s sophomore season coming up, especially as the man himself feels like there were “lots of take always” from last season, “like obviously Formula E is a very different championship to anything else you race.
“So, continuing to learn how the races go, how the weekends go. Coming in with a new manufacturer, a new team as well, was tough for sure. But we knew that coming into last year, and we made very good progress in certain areas.
“As much testing as possible is best for us and we have a long way to go but I’m looking forward to the second season with the team.”
Expectation management appears to be in the forefront of Maloney’s mind though and that is natural. On one hand Lola will be looking to achieve much more in 2026 but on the other it has also been spreading resources with the Gen4 project and in a team still building that could mean a drop off in its racing focus too.
“The goal is of course for us as a team to be consistently scoring points,” said Maloney.
“I don’t care about finishing P10 versus P11 as we want to eventually look at the end goal and want to be winning races and championships. We’re just focused on getting somewhere near that stage as soon as possible. But it’s a lot easier said than done.
“My goal is to just maximise the car that I’m given, continue to give proper feedback and develop the car as much as I can with Lucas. Then those points, podiums, wins, championships, if everyone sticks to it and does a good job and I drive well, then hopefully those eventually come.”
From the Lola Yamaha ABT team’s viewpoint Maloney’s integration into Formula E will be digested from a time point of view but in the second season the pressure will certainly ratchet up a little too.
“We know it’s taken time to bring a rookie up to speed and so on,” says deputy team principal Fred Espinos.
Zane was quick enough in F3 and F2, so there’s no reason that he’s not succeeding in Formula E. This is why we brought him in early, and we built on him as he was a ‘Top Gun’ of Formula Two and also a guy that is interesting to have for Gen4.
“What we don’t know, and this is what will give us the first test and so on, is the balance between the Formula E experience and the single seater experience with Gen4.
“Do we need to have more Formula E experience than a single-seater experienced driver? Or the opposite? So that’s what we need to answer.”
Additional Reporting by Georgia Williams
