DS Penske’s Stoffel Vandoorne felt that a chance of victory in the Monaco E-Prix was dashed by the second deployment of the Safety Car late on in the race.
The Belgian took third place, his first podium since his title-winning 2022 year, and his first for Penske, but felt frustrated after feeling that victory was within his grasp, and when the Jaguar TCS Racing pair of eventual winner Mitch Evans and second placed Nick Cassidy played-out their team strategy in order to secure their 1-2 victory, Vandoorne knew the chance was gone.
“I think we had a good qualifying,” Vandoorne said, adding: “we were where we deserved to be in P2, and we wanted to start in the top four or five, which was the target and what we executed, which was good, and in the race, the first part we managed well.
“It was good to take the lead and take control of the race, and make sure we could control things and my first Attack Mode was perfect, and I didn’t lose any positions, but even after the first Safety Car things looked good, but the second one was where we lost the race.
“I did more or less the same, but the gap was a little bit smaller, so we lost the lead to both Jaguars, and as they were ahead, they were going to play games, they opened up the gaps to each-other, let each-other pass to take Attack Modes for free, so for me to was just like driving in circles and just bringing it home.”
Penske have shown a rise in form since the arrival of technical whizz Phil Charles from Jaguar, and in Misano and Monaco, both Vandoorne and team-mate Jean-Éric Vergne have shown considerable one lap pace, pitting them against many rivals in the qualifying duals, and Vandoorne, whilst aware of the good showing the car is capable of over one lap, knows there is work to be done in the races.
“One lap pace is one thing, and we’ve been good at that for a little while now.
“We can qualify high at a lot of the events which definitely helps, it’s still the races that are a bit of a challenge for us, and some have gone better than others.
“We clearly know we still have work to do, so let’s see in Berlin how we do.”
