Di Grassi on costly Race 2 mistakes in Monaco

Race 2 of the Monaco E-Prix ended in disappointment for Lucas di Grassi, after a misjudged overtaking attempt resulted in a crash that forced his retirement. Attempting to pass Jake Dennis while in Attack Mode, di Grassi miscalculated the move and ended up in the wall on lap 7.

The incident triggered a full course yellow, briefly neutralising the race and adding to the list of challenges posed by the slippery, unpredictable conditions around the principality. Reflecting on the crash, di Grassi admitted fault and took responsibility for the mistake.

Di Grassi and Maloney lacked the pace to compete during Race 2 in Monaco

Di Grassi admitted that the Monaco E-Prix served as a reality check for Lola Yamaha ABT, highlighting the team’s lack of pace throughout the weekend. Despite promising laps in wet qualifying that saw di Grassi start ninth and teammate Zane Maloney eleventh, both drivers struggled to convert those positions into meaningful race results.

While di Grassi started 11th with Maloney ninth, the Lola Yamaha ABT drivers could not convert their starting positions into points, with the car lacking the pace to fight at the front. Though he acknowledged, that they had simply not been fast enough, di Grassi stressed the need to understand why, identifying continued development as the team’s top priority.

“I think Monaco was a back to earth type of moment because we didn’t have the pace. In the dry, me and Zane, we were more or less close together, but we are not close, we are not fast at all, we are not as fast as we should be.”

“And then in the wet, ok, wet is chaos, wet is just a matter of getting a lap together, so in qualifying in the wet we did a good job, starting 9th and 11th for the team, but overall, we didn’t have the pace this weekend, we need to understand why, and continue development.”

The team has to analyse the weekend and should focus on moving forward

di Grassi reflected on the stark contrast between Lola Yamaha ABT’s performances in Miami and Monaco, recognising that the team had taken a significant step forward at the former before facing harsh realities at the latter.

“Miami was an extraordinary weekend,” he noted. “We were back to a more competitive level, but Monaco brought us back to where we were.”

While Miami’s new circuit helped level the playing field, Monaco’s established layout played to the strengths of more experienced teams. Di Grassi stressed the importance of understanding what went right in Miami and why those gains did not translate to Monaco.

“But again, we are back, Miami I think was an extraordinary weekend, we are back to more or less where we were, and Miami was a new track for everybody, here everybody knew, so they have more experience than us.”

“So I think for Tokyo we need to understand why Miami was good, here was bad, and trying to improve, but we are not in a position yet to score points consistently, we need to improve the team.”