Can Zane Maloney do what no teammate has done to Oliver Rowland since the 2019-20 season. That is, to beat him fair and square.
Sacha Fenestraz tried and got crushed. Norman Nato got so hammered on points it beggars belief: 321 to 41 over two seasons!
In fact, you have to go back to Sebastien Buemi six years ago to find the last time Rowland finished behind a teammate in Formula E, and on that occasion it was by just one point.
Yes, there was his part season with Mahindra in 2023, when its disastrous initial Gen3 car caused Rowland to bail out mid-season. But from a full season stance, since 2020, the British ace has never come close to being beaten by a teammate.
Therefore, it is a big ask for Zane Maloney to bound up to the imposing and established Rowland and try some of his famed cage fighting moves on him from the off. Bantamweight versus heavyweight, there could be some intriguing scraps coming up but it will take a while.
So, could Maloney really rattle Rowland’s own seemingly secure Nissan cage?
“In a way, he didn’t have it (teammate threat) since he came back here and even only partially from the customer team (McLaren with Bird, Hughes and Barnard),” Nissan team chief, Tommaso Volpe told Formula E Notebook.
“My honest opinion is that it is difficult to put Oliver under pressure direct from a teammate,” continued Volpe.
“However, of course we welcome it. We welcome this possibility from Zane, and having also next year sprint races and more points in qualifying, and all this being a little bit more similar to F2, who knows?”
“We also believe that after a while, maybe he (Maloney) needs a few races to adapt. We are confident he could bring value to the team, and why not some constructive challenge to Oliver too. But let’s not forget that we all work for the team, so it has to be a very constructive way to put the drivers in competition between themselves.”
The indication: Maloney v di Grassi
Although Lucas di Grassi took all the headlines with his and Lola Yamaha ABT’s sensational Shanghai surprise win last month, it was actually Maloney who showed the more promise from a pure pace perspective last season.
It was just that he rarely got to show it in a race, with his chances often spoiled by penalties and a mix of team and reliability missteps.
Maloney qualified better than di Grassi nine times, with the Brazilian bettering Maloney three times when they were not affected by penalties or issues. Maloney made the duels three times (Both Berlin races and second Shanghai) and he was also fifth twice in his qualifying groups (at the second Jeddah and Madrid) where he missed out on the duels by tiny margins – 0.105s and 0.081s respectively). Maloney’s highest group qualifying position was third, while di Grassi’s was seventh.
If you take di Grassi’s win out of the equation, di Grassi scored only four more points than his teammate. It’s partly fair to say the pair were evenly matched across the season but in reality it was Maloney that seemed to have the edge on outright pace.
Maloney’s luck last season was outrageously bad. In Jeddah he got swiped out by a wayward Marti; in Jeddah he qualified an excellent 10th and then got a bizarre penalty for an energy overspike on the way to the grid; in Shanghai his driveshaft broke; in London he had another breakage….and on it went. There were many more fitful incidents across the season, most of which Maloney could do little about.
What is now in his own hands as a big chance with a major manufacturer. There will be some who doubt he has deserved it. The reality though is that his performances have been severely masked and for once his luck in Formula E changed.
