FE contenders 'starting from zero' in Tokyo, Guenther says

Maximilian Guenther isn’t expecting to have an advantage coming into this weekend’s Tokyo E-Prix, despite winning the inaugural edition of the event last season.

Guenther moved to DS Penske from Maserati MSG Racing for this campaign and has already won a race in his new colors – the first race of the Jeddah E-Prix where he also took pole – but while he has a strong package once again as he returns to the site of his fifth Formula E win, he isn’t expecting a straightforward weekend.

“Everybody starts from zero,” Guenther insisted. “So even though Tokyo last year was good for me, it doesn't mean this year is going to be easy, or you can build so much on it. It's really Formula E, you have to be with your feet very much on the ground. We all know that because everything has to be aligned for these good performances.

“I'm really grateful it was the case this year in Jeddah, it was a great weekend for us, with pole position there and in the win. I think our target is really just to get the momentum going now into this second half of the season.

Guenther’s new team runs the same Stellantis drivetrain as Maserati, but there have been a number of other changes across the board. Not only have the drivetrains evolved from last season – along with the car’s bodywork and the addition of four-wheel drive in Attack Mode – but there have been changes to the Tokyo track, too, with it being widened in places and the chicane in the final sector eliminated entirely.

“It's not just a matter of putting the race winner last year with the setup from last year and you win again,” said DS Penske’s deputy team principal and team president Phil Charles. “Unfortunately, it's much more difficult than that. The tire is a big difference compared to last year, the body work is a big difference, and these races are evolving in a different way this year as well.

“So lots and lots of small differences that add up to mean that you can't just fit the same setup and the same ideas as last year. You have to really be on it.”

This year there will be two races at the Tokyo E-Prix, meaning for the third time there will be a Pit Boost race, where drivers pit for 34 seconds for a 10 percent top-up of energy. But unlike the races in Jeddah and Monaco, the two races over the doubleheader weekend will differ in length, meaning that both races will be similar in terms of energy conservation and consumption, and like last year’s Tokyo experience, the knowledge from previous Pit Boost races will only get them so far.

“This time we have a different number of laps, we have 35 laps on the Pit Boost race and 32 on the non-Pit Boost race,” said Charles. “It means that the previous races, effectively, we had, for the same number of laps, this extra 3.85 kilowatt hour energy in the car through that race put into the car during the race. This time, we don't, but we've corrected the number of laps. So actually, both of the races this week are quite a high kind of energy trickiness.

“So they're quite energy starved, in a similar amount. We've got that extra energy, but we've got a correction on the lap number, so it's a little bit different this time to the previous two. The two races will have a more similar dynamic in terms of the amount of energy saving, but we've also, all of us, have learned a lot. We're evolving a lot the way that we approach these Pit Boost races.

“It's a different race to the previous Pit Boost ones, so it can be very interesting. And above all of that, it's going to rain tomorrow. So what we've learned before is good, but take account of this big difference in the weather.”