Stoffel Vandoorne hasn’t been on a Formula E podium since winning the 2021-22 championship, but he finally snapped the unfortunate streak by finishing third in the Monaco E-Prix. But despite returning to the rostrum, the DS Penske driver conceded that he was disappointed after failing to mount a sustained challenge for the win on the streets of Monte Carlo.
“It feels good although I’m almost a little disappointed because I think we had a strong car today,” he said. “We qualified very well, we managed the first part of the race very good.
“Where I feel like we lost the race is when I took the second (Attack Mode). We nearly pulled it off, to slot in between both Jaguars. I think if we would have managed that it would have been a different race and we might have had a real chance at winning it.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1394]
Jaguar TCS Racing’s mastery of Attack Mode strategy allowed Mitch Evans to effectively take two free passes, holding onto the lead as Nick Cassidy held up the field behind him.
“Having both of them in front of us, that’s where all the games started to play out and where the gaps got created and where they could just take their Attack Modes for free, basically,” Vandoorne said.
Nevertheless, Vandoorne says the podium is a confidence booster for him, and his team with the Stellantis package used by DS Penske improving in relation to the pace-setting Jaguar and Porsche powertrains in race trim.
“It obviously helps. It’s always good to pull off a good result and I think our races have been the difficult point — I think we’ve always been able to qualify well but we’ve never really been able to capitalize on that and really play the race well,” he admitted. “I think now we’ve got a better understanding of that, we’re improving our car race-by-race as well and that’s starting to pay off, so I think we’re on the rise.”
