Giorgio Maggi after EuroNASCAR PRO season: “Need less bad luck!”
Giorgio Maggi believes he can be successful with Hendriks Motorsports in the EuroNASCAR PRO championship – But for that, the team needs a little more luck
It’s done! Despite all the issues brought by the coronavirus, the 2020 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series (NWES) season has been brought over the stage. From a sporting perspective, it was not an easy debut in the EuroNASCAR PRO championship for Giorgio Maggi (Hendriks Motorsports).
“It was a very difficult year under the conditions, as there was a lot of driving time missing and there were changes to the regulations, so we lacked experience with the setup,” explained the Swiss. Added to this, he had a serious accident during testing at Zolder, which affected the 22-year-old’s start to the season in Italy.
“It didn’t help that our dampers broke twice and we had to do both races like that,” Maggi added. “Especially the first two weekends were very difficult for us because of the technical issues. We showed our potential but didn’t get any good results.”
Then, in Grobnik, Croatia, things started to get better: the Swiss race driver grabbed the pole position in qualifying. For Maggi, it was the turning point in the season, as the team had less bad luck than in the first two rounds and the Swiss proved his skills. At the season finale, the search for the right car settings slowed down the driver of the #18 car.
“In Valencia, the worm was in the setup. We tried everything, nothing really worked on our car. Even in the races we tried setups,” said the Swiss. Even setups that would have worked on one of the team’s other cars didn’t work on another. “Everything related to the setup was bizarre,” Maggi summed up.
Overall, Maggi has two top 5 and three top 10 results in the 2020 NWES season. His best finish was a second place at the Automotodrom Grobnik in Croatia that brought him the win in the Junior Trophy for drivers 25 and under. He ended up eleventh in the overall standings after ten rounds. His teammate Vittorio Ghirelli won the EuroNASCAR 2 championship in the exact same car.
The Hendriks driver has taken a number of positive things away from the past season – in particular that he is able to keep up with the European NASCAR elite at the front. For this to be the case in the coming year, the Swiss driver said he needs “less bad luck.” In addition, according to Maggi, both the crew and he himself need to work on themselves so that the team can attack at the top in the coming year.
