In Tokyo, Maserati MSG Racing wraps up a fierce doubleheader.

ABU DHABI : Following the euphoria of the Round 8 triumph at Tokyo, Maserati MSG Racing were unable to follow up their race-winning performance with Jake Hughes crossing the line in P18 and yesterday's winner Stoffel Vandoorne unable to finish Round 9 after late-race collision.

With no practice yesterday and no danger of rain for today's racing day, Stoffel and Jake would have understood how crucial today's session would be.

Stoffel was out early in Group A and was happy with the car after changes made after FP3. He was prepared to deliver a powerful push lap when Jaguar's Mitch Evans came heavy into the barriers, causing a halt to the group stage. Stoffel did everything in his power, but traffic rendered the perfect lap impossible to obtain. He finished short of advancing to the duels by half a second.

Jake was in Group B, though before long it became clear that tyre temperatures were again troubling him. He also missed advancing to the duels by a small margin, the entire group under eight tenths of a second.

Attempting to make the most of the race, the team diverged in strategy. Jake had the more aggressive early Attack Mode while Stoffel's race was more conservative and in line with the predicted strategy. Jake's strategy was ruined by a very late safety car for McLaren's Taylor Barnard.

Being so behind to be sent to deploy, the opportunity to lay laps on the race had passed, leaving Jake with just one lap to enable and execute his final two minutes of Attack Mode.  He had to drop back dramatically in the last lap to meet the Attack Mode requirements before crossing the chequered flag, placing him at the bottom of the classified order.

It was an added insult to injury when Stoffel had to enter the pits as the safety car came out with severe damage on his vehicle. Nissan's Norman Nato also experienced a torque cut when Stoffel was slowing down to overtake him, and so the two made contact. Stoffel was suspended from the ground for an instant resulting in a broken front wing and puncture which made him withdraw to end his race.

It was not the weekend send off Maserati MSG Racing would have been seeking after the adrenalin of yesterday. The team's attention now focuses on maximising qualifying performance, looking to come back stronger for the remainder of the rounds in Shanghai.

QUOTES

Jake Hughes, Driver, Maserati MSG Racing: “Overall, we can only say it’s a successful weekend; any weekend the team get a win is successful weekend. Today feels like a missed opportunity, not because we did anything wrong, but because we didn’t maximise qualifying. At the moment we don’t completely understand this tyre. In Free Practice 3, I was out the front always, around P2, P3, sometimes even P1, confident with the car. Then we put a different set of tyres on for qualifying and we’re at the back. It's not reflective of the true pace of the car; we’re just missing something in tyre preparation which we need to understand. In the race, I got to a good place with my strategy, in the points, but unfortunately the safety car took away all that hard work. It was too late in the race for me, and I couldn’t fulfil the Attack Mode allocation, so I had to slow down about 60 seconds on the final lap to avoid an Attack Mode infringement penalty. We learnt a lot this weekend, we got a win for the team, so we go into Shanghai with, hopefully, some good momentum.”

Stoffel Vandoorne, Driver, Maserati MSG Racing: “It was a tough race today and unfortunately I didn’t finish. It was an unlucky accident with Norman; he had a power cut out of Turn 8, just as I was on Attack Mode and overtaking him. We had contact, my car took off which caused a puncture and a broken front wing which meant I couldn’t make it to the end. I think it would have been a decent race; we could have finished P9 with a couple of points. That would have been nice, probably the maximum we could have done today. We’ve got some work to do, got to improve our qualifying performance because it’s been a little bit up and down. Overall, leaving Tokyo with a victory so we can be proud of that, and looking forward to Shanghai.”

Cyril Blais, Team Principal, Maserati MSG Racing: “We have to self-reflect on today, we didn’t do the job in qualifying, so we started too far back. In the race, we split the strategy between our drivers and they both did their job, and both were up in the top ten fighting for points. Unfortunately, Stoffel had race-ending contact and Jake had the late safety car which neutralised both their strategic advantages. The safety car came one lap too late for Jake - otherwise he would have been fighting for points. It wasn’t our day today. We did what we had to in the race, now we need to focus and try to understand how to maximise our one lap pace because that’s what cost us today.”

Maria Conti, Head of Maserati Corse: “Today's race finished off an extraordinary weekend in Tokyo. The final outcome includes not only a memorable victory, but above all the outstanding work of the entire team. Every race weekend is an opportunity for learning. From Tokyo, we take home some fundamental lessons to be implemented both off the track and in races so we can improve in the second part of the season. This country is one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of development and innovation in technology, as well as being a key city within Maserati’s strategy, offering the possibility to meet our customers. Looking ahead, our firm goal remains to keep performance at its peak and to get closer to the leading group so we can improve our results. We bring Maserati’s competitive DNA to every round, taking us closer and closer to our brand’s centenary in motorsport, a milestone to which the countdown has already begun.”