Nyck de Vries is hoping the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team are as competitive this weekend in the Rome ePrix as they were in the season-opening weekend in Saudi Arabia.
De Vries took his maiden FIA Formula E victory in the first race of the Diriyah ePrix at the end of February and goes into the second event on top of the championship standings thanks to a ninth place in race two.
The Dutchman believes the weekend in Rome is likely to be very different to what happened in Saudi Arabia due to the different type of track, but he hopes Mercedes are as competitive this weekend as they were in round one.
“At last, we’ve got another race weekend to get stuck into,” said de Vries. “Since the season opener in Diriyah, we’ve obviously done everything we could to be optimally prepared for Rome.
“I think it is going to be a different track from the ones we’ve been racing on recently. It looks like a real city centre Formula E track – the varying surface quality and the elevation changes are going to make for a bumpy ride, so it promises to be a very intense and challenging race.
“We’re obviously hoping that we’ll be as competitive as we were in Diriyah. It is difficult to predict what the opposition is going to do.”
De Vries will have the difficulty of being in the first group in Qualifying on Saturday, which he feels will put him at a disadvantage, but he hopes to be able to advance into the pole shootout and fight for strong points in the race.
“On Saturday, we will be out in qualifying group 1, so I think the target there should be to qualify in the Top Ten and take our race from there,” said de Vries.
“The most important thing is to take it one step at a time and make sure we put the laps in and gather the data to basically build the rest of our weekend on that.”
