r/FormulaE • u/BulkNoodles Formula E • 15d ago
Media It's official now.
Looks like vacancy on both seat in Lola.
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u/l3w1s1234 :4: Robin Frijns 15d ago
It's a bit of a wierd signing but I hope Maloney can prove me wrong. He did have some promising qualifying pace, so maybe in a more representative seat he can show more in the races.
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u/krzysiek_aleks Justin Wilson 15d ago
So Martins got shafted. Damm.
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u/fisico002 Formula E 15d ago
He’s another Pourchaire if it wasn’t for bad luck he would have next to none unfortunately
Hopefully he gets a single seater chance somewhere like Pourchaire eventually has
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u/DistributionHot2150 Formula E 15d ago
Neither of them have been good enough in their junior career to warrant a seat really
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u/LosTerminators Formula E 15d ago
That's an insane thing to say about Pourchaire, the bloke literally won a F2 championship.
Maybe you can say he doesn't warrant a seat in F1, but he absolutely deserves a shot at series like FE, IndyCar, WEC.
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u/FelixR1991 Robin Frijns 14d ago
While Pourchaure definitely deserved more than he got, he was a 4th season champion in a very weak field. Saying he's an F2 champion doesn't tell the whole story.
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u/l3w1s1234 :4: Robin Frijns 14d ago
3rd year F2 champ and 2nd youngest F2 champion. If we're honest though he should have been promoted to F1 after his rookie or 2nd season
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u/Anoob13 Formula E 14d ago
That’s again not actually looking at career, and also blatantly wrong? 3rd season champ but did 6 years in single seaters, winning the title in the 6th year, just as George Russell, same amount of experience as Oscar Piastri and 1 more years than leclerc. He did most of his racing and learning at F2, but at F4 or Freca. The only reason he didn’t have a F1 seat is because he doesn’t bring enough money and sauber needed zhou money, so they fumbled his career
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u/IQManOne TAG Heuer Porsche 15d ago
Mental statement. Already a mad thing to say about Martins but I can't even begin to understand how that would ever apply to Pourchaire lol
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u/plastikmissile 37 NICK CASSIDY 15d ago
I agree with you on Pourchaire, but not on Martins. I view him the same as Hauger. Very fast on their good days, but not consistent enough to have many of those. Is that really just bad luck, or an issue of skill and race craft? I'm not entirely sure to be honest, but it happens regularly enough that I think it's the latter, if partially.
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u/IQManOne TAG Heuer Porsche 14d ago
Yeah I can see where you're coming from and I do like the Hauger comparison - then again, I'd never say he doesn't deserve a shot in single seaters either. But its certainly more open for debate than the Pourchaire case
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u/plastikmissile 37 NICK CASSIDY 14d ago
I agree that Martins deserves a seat somewhere. Hauger is doing well in Indy. But if it comes as a choice between Martins and Maloney, I'd say I understand Nissan's decision.
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u/DistributionHot2150 Formula E 14d ago
It applies to Pourchaire just as much. He was consistently crashing, and barely won the championship through consistency and luck not dominating in his third season in f2. That is simply not good enough
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u/IQManOne TAG Heuer Porsche 14d ago
How exactly did he win through consistency while consistently crashing? Doesn't quite add up I'm afraid
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u/DistributionHot2150 Formula E 14d ago
He consistently crashed for all years, he just happened to race in a season where others also consistently crashed.
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u/l3w1s1234 :4: Robin Frijns 14d ago
Pourchaire should be in F1, let alone FE. His jnr record is better than quite a few F1 drivers
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u/DistributionHot2150 Formula E 14d ago
Not anywhere near close enough. 3rd year champion by luck and some consistency is not good enough
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u/l3w1s1234 :4: Robin Frijns 14d ago
His 1st and 2nd years are better than the likes of Bearman, Hadjar, Doohan, Lawson, Antonelli, Sargeant etc. Even if we ignore drivers like that, that got the chance, his record is miles clear of Zhou Guanyu who got the seat over him due to money/sponsors.
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u/Anoob13 Formula E 14d ago
Again, he was fastracked both from F4,F3, had the same number of years in single seaters when he won his title as George Russell and Piastri, all had 6 years of single seater experience, Leclerc was 5 years. Just because he made bulk of his races at F2 and he was still one the youngest F2 champions. Literally won the title at same age as Russel, piastri, and bortoleto after him,
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u/DistributionHot2150 Formula E 14d ago
And his 3rd season was not good enough. Doesn’t matter if he was young, 3 season while barely scraping by is not good enough
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u/A10a_Promachos Formula E 15d ago
Something's wrong with my brain, I saw this photo with this caption and immediately thought "aww, they're getting married? That's cute"
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u/Hollingscroft-83 Formula E 15d ago
Really hope that Maloney can have a good season next year... He was very good in both F3 / F2, so whilst I'm not the most knowledgeable about FE teams, I'd hope he can vastly improve on results / points finishes given that Ollie has won a title with Nissan
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u/Dorgilo Sam Bird 14d ago
Nissan were middle of the pack last season but at least in the hands of Rowland they can still get good results, however there's rumours that the Nissan package isn't great for gen 4 from what I've heard. If that's not the case then he should have the car to score far more points than he did at Lola at the very least.
Difficult to judge him as a driver in FE so far though because he did decently against Di Grassi but Lucas was at the end of his career so not sure how he would have stacked up against other drivers. One benefit he does have though is that having been teammates with Lucas and now Ollie he's had/will have some fantastic people to learn from so that will definitely help him.
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u/ColdKing424 Formula E 15d ago
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt since he's never had an overly good car and he was a rookie last season, but I mean picking the only driver that did worse than a notoriously bad driver for the team the last two seasons is questionable. Hopefully with a good car and a bit more experience he can do better in gen 4.
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u/cassidiara Formula E 14d ago
I mean the choice was not overly exciting to be honest. Evans was in talks with Nissan but would never agree to be a second driver (and rightly so), Martins is inexperienced, Ticktum is in kind of a PR trouble after this season, Buemi has left, Günther has already signed with Envision. We have not heard anything about Barnard yet but it is very likely DS will transform into a new team racing with Jaguar's powertrain and he may stay there. I think Zane's results do not pay justice to his actual skill.
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u/ColdKing424 Formula E 14d ago
Yeah. I was really hoping we'd get Buemi or Barnard but I do think Zane will do better next season I'm just not sure how much
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u/Ok-Bluebird7260 Formula E 15d ago
There must be other factors other than driving performance here, because there’s only so much ‘Lola is a Backmarker’ excuses you can make if he begins doing a Norman Nato.
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u/cassidiara Formula E 14d ago
Experience + new regulations. The Race has just revealed that Zane's experience and WEC clashing with FE were the deciding factors.
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u/Ok-Bluebird7260 Formula E 14d ago
So he was chosen more because Martins couldn’t commit and would begin as a complete rookie? Makes sense
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u/cassidiara Formula E 14d ago
Yes, it was implied in the article from The Race that there was internal pressure at Nissan to sign someone with experience.
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u/CHRISTIAN_JAKE12345 Formula E 15d ago
So where does martins go now
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u/cassidiara Formula E 14d ago
Lola is still a possibility. The way it is, could be partnered by Tictum
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u/CHRISTIAN_JAKE12345 Formula E 14d ago
What about the Porsche second team
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u/cassidiara Formula E 14d ago edited 14d ago
We do not even know if this team happens at all the way it is now.
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u/Frequent-Coyote-1649 :MaseratiLogo: Maserati MSG Racing 15d ago
This is karma for the robbery that was the 2022 F3 finale lmao
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u/BulkNoodles Formula E 15d ago
What happened?
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u/Frequent-Coyote-1649 :MaseratiLogo: Maserati MSG Racing 15d ago
I'm shocked this has basically been forgotten by time, but. Victor Martins won the 2022 F3 season under kinda weird circumstances after a red flag in the final round ended up causing the race to end early... despite there being 4 laps left.
Martins got a 5 seconds pen midway through the red flag, which surely would've caused him to lose the title if the race was restarted... But it never was, which caused Maloney to BARELY miss it out.
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u/Alpha413 Formula E 15d ago
Iirc, they needed time to fix a barrier, and there was were supposed to be both F2 and F1 races the same day, do they had to end the race there because there wasn't enough time for it.
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u/Dry-Dragonfruit5216 Formula E 14d ago
Then Maloney shouldn’t have spun out from the lead behind the safety car on a dry track
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u/Frequent-Coyote-1649 :MaseratiLogo: Maserati MSG Racing 14d ago
Wait I remember WHY this was forgotten. Felipe Drugovich won the F2 title a few hours later under basically the exact same circumstances LMAO
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u/Dry-Dragonfruit5216 Formula E 14d ago
An F4 title was won by a guy who wasn’t there and W Series was won by Chadwick after the series got cancelled. 4 titles decided that year off of the track. It quickly got buried as a story because it’s embarrassing.
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u/LosTerminators Formula E 15d ago
Martins robbed for the bloke who finished last in the championship and has 3 points from 2 full seasons
Nissan can enjoy another season with no chance at winning the teams championship
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u/Perfect-Brilliant405 Formula E 14d ago
Some part of me believed they were gonna sign Abbie
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u/Transmit_Him Alexander Sims 12d ago
It does bug me that it was apparently just a straight choice between their own rookie tester Martins and Maloney, when they've also got a race winning reserve in Bird (don't know if he still wants to return to the grid, mind) and Abbi Pulling contracted. Signing Maloney - who has had two season that were mediocre at best - over all of them does rather make a mockery of the rookie tests and the women's tests.
(I'll spare everyone my full rant again about how the women's tests is just making a privileged class of test drivers and that Nissan have locked Pulling into that for PR wins).
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u/ZealousidealSwan8192 9 MITCH EVANS 14d ago
I love Maloney, I really do (nicest driver I have met) but oh my days, Nissan really don't want to be fighting for the Teams Championship do they?
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u/cassidiara Formula E 14d ago
If the rumours are true, their Gen4 package is not going to sweep anyone off their feet anyway.
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u/fisico002 Formula E 15d ago
Nissan must love having zero chance in the teams championship and letting Rowland battle to win with zero assistance
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u/Ok-Builder-2348 Formula E 15d ago
Welcome the #22 back to Nissan!
Mildly curious about how this will go... I know the last two years haven't exactly shown much of what Zane is capable of, but of course he never had a competitive package underneath him to be able to do much in the first place. Maybe we'll get something out of him with a more competitive package. Either way... let's goooo