Mahindra Racing left the Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia, last Friday pleased with the progress they’d made with their M9Electro, as the side continue their preparations for Season Nine and the birth of the third generation of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.
Despite it being winter, all the teams were thankfully met by dry weather for the vast majority of the official pre-season test (excluding Tuesday), which gave Lucas Di Grassi in particular plenty of time to get to work with his new team. The Formula E veteran joins Mahindra for Season Nine after leaving ROKIT Venturi Racing (known now as Maserati MSG Racing) at the end of Season Eight. It means that Di Grassi will have driven for a different team in each of the last three seasons; however, at least he will be back working with ABT Sportsline.
The brand new ABT CUPRA Formula E Team are a customer side of Mahindra, meaning that Di Grassi might be collaborating with his former side.
Oliver Rowland enjoyed a strong week in Valencia and was occasionally seen towards the top of the timesheets, suggesting that the Indian outfit have some pace at their disposal for the season opener in Mexico City.
Whilst Rowland is remaining is with the team for a second season, Di Grassi isn’t the only new face, with the side having a new CEO in Frederic Bertrand. Reflecting on the week in Valencia, Bertrand hailed it as “very long” but was pleased by the effort put on show by Mahindra, with 1600km worth of data having been collected.
“It has been a very long week, with lots learnt. It was a big team effort to get the cars on track and to understand everything with this new Gen3 car. I think we all feel quite satisfied with how the test went. All the team, including the support from ZF, did a great job. The team now has so much data that we can work with back in the factory in preparation for Mexico.”
