Lucas di Grassi’s 14th EPrix win, possibly his last, may have come in the same country as his first but the circumstances could hardly have been more different.
The maiden win of course came in the very first Formula E race at Beijing in September 2014. The circumstances that day may well have been as dramatic as you can hope for in a race after Nico Prost’s unfathomable swipe at Nick Heidlfeld sent the German in to the fence and on to his head.
While thankfully there was no such carnage in Shanghai earlier today, the drama was still very much there. The fact it started to percolate at an ungodly hour, after a scheduled change due to weather, gave it an extra frisson of theatre. And where di Grassi races spectacle usually follows.
Lola’s relatively new deputy Team Principal, Frederic Espinos, is a former press man, who started his career largely via his racing mother – Michèle Espinosi-Petit – a legendary French rally co-driver known via her nickname of ‘Biche’, and who with Jean-Claude Andruet, with the pair winning the prestigious 1972 and 1974 Tour de Corse events. So, Espinos knows how to tell a good story, although on this occasion there was no embellishment needed.
“Since the beginning of today we had the pace and I even said to the guys after practice this morning ‘we are there today’, so it’s the first time we are ‘there’ like this,” Espinos told Formula E Notebook.
“On the grid, there were these mixed [conditions] situation, and we learned from the past, as we had a situation like this in Berlin last year, where we don’t know if it’s dry or wet, and we had the two cars in the same configuration, which was a very bad choice.”
Espinos didn’t want the same mistakes to play out again. So, he and the team took action, and they did it quickly.
“I went on the grid and told the engineers, ‘whatever you do, I don’t want the two cars in the same configuration’,” he added.
“So, we decided on full wet for Zane (Maloney) and a compromise with Lucas with a drier setup, which was a pure gamble.
As well as that rationale Lola also defined some strategies that would be different. Maloney’s strategy was clearly to use Attack Mode to stay in the lead group, while di Grassi had an “all-in strategy of waiting until the end to use Attack Mode” according to Espinos.
“It paid off. The Brazilian’s first Attack Mode allowed him to gain positions, and then then just as the second was being prepared, THE irony occurred.
Maloney’s rear suspension broke as he entered the main straight and the gearbox was damaged. With no drive he had no option but to park the yellow and blue car. Cue yellows and eventually a Full Course Yellow.
“Already before the FCY, I looked to my right at (team principal) Mark (Preston) and Mishern (Chetty) the CEO of Lola, because they were talking and not focusing on the race.
“I told them, ‘guys, we’re going to win this’.
“You should have seen their faces! We were in the right place at the right time with this FCY came. We were sorry for Zane because he deserved a good result, but this FCY helped us.”
“Lucas, at the restart was very calm, he did a great execution,” added Espinos.
“I don’t think we were lucky, because the pace was there. Our second place at Miami last year was much luckier. Today we made good decisions that led to this result, and we had a perfect race execution. Lucas knows how to read a race and he read it very well today.”
