CUPRA KIRO faces challenging wet-weather race in Shanghai
CUPRA KIRO experiences challenging and treacherous wet-weather race at the 2025 Shanghai E-Prix
CUPRA KIRO faced a challenging race in Round 11 of the 2024/25 Formula E season as the team navigated a treacherous day of wet weather running at the Shanghai International Circuit.
Due to the poor conditions, FP3 and the duel stages of Qualifying were cancelled, with results from Groups A and B forming the grid. This left Dan Ticktum starting from 19th, while David Beckmann lined up 22nd.
High spray and poor visibility minimised overtaking opportunities and following a pair of early spins for Dan and David, and with an absence of caution periods, their late Attack Mode strategy failed to yield a return.
With the late progress, Dan fought forward to finish 16th with a late overtake on Jake Dennis, while David finished 20th after passing Norman Nato.
Quotes at a Glance
Alex Hui: "I know we still have more to give."
Dan Ticktum: "Overall, a day to forget."
David Beckmann: "We were hoping for a Safety Car but it never arrived."
Russell O'Hagan: "Today was frustrating in every sense."
Alex Hui, Team Principal, CUPRA KIRO
“With changes to the schedule, rain delays, and even format alterations, today has been very challenging. After the performance we showed yesterday, we were confident of another strong result, but with our Qualifying result and because of how wet weather changes energy management, we knew that it would be difficult to score points. But that’s motorsport sometimes, and we still gave it our all. With Shanghai now complete, we’re now just over two-thirds of the way through this season, and we’re very excited for the coming races in Jakarta, Berlin, and London – three circuits which should suit our package very well. We have a short break in the schedule before Jakarta, but we’ll continue to push as always. I know that we still have more to give.”
Dan Ticktum, Driver, CUPRA KIRO
“Today it was too wet to race, and the visibility was too poor. Unfortunately, we messed up with the car set up in Qualifying and we had no grip, so I wasn’t able to put the car into a good starting position for the race. It’s very difficult to go forward in a race like that. There was one line where there was slightly less standing water, but off-line, it was like ice. It was difficult to overtake and make an impact, and I also made a couple of mistakes trying to push into the points. We did make some changes from Qualifying into the race which did make the car feel more competitive, but we were starting too far back. Overall, a day to forget.”
David Beckmann, Driver, CUPRA KIRO
“More or less, it has been a weekend to forget. Today we were not fast enough in Qualifying, and we started at the back. We were hoping for a Safety Car which would have allowed us to maximise our strategy, but it never arrived, and it was very difficult to overtake in the rain. We were really fast in Qualifying yesterday, but didn’t maximise Round 10, but we clearly have good one-lap pace. At the next race in Jakarta, it can be quite difficult to overtake, so hopefully we can take advantage of our Qualifying pace to start well and get some points.”
Russell O’Hagan, Chief Operating Officer, CUPRA KIRO
“Today was frustrating in every sense. Our poor performance in Qualifying left us with very limited strategy options in a wet race. We leant into the only viable strategy we had, but it was reliant on a Safety Car for us to have any chance of scoring points. That Safety Car never came. We have a few things that we need to understand about our performance in the wet, but we have a lot of positives that we can take away from yesterday. We’re continuing our strong progress, and we’re already looking forward to Jakarta.”
