Exceeding expectations in Formula E is no easy task but Citroen Racing has managed it in multiple layers after just two races.

But there's an important caveat. This is not a new team, nor a straightforward one. This is a team that won a race last season too, and the season before that, and the season before that - as Maserati MSG. While it would be uncharitable to suggest that just the stickers and branding have changed on those cars, this is not an overnight success.

Perhaps the much more impressive aspect of Nick Cassidy's win in Mexico City last weekend was the fact that it had been done via a team previously battered, bruised but unbowed after a torrid few seasons of uncertainty and boardroom discord.

The Race has covered in detail its missteps and often chaotic structure over the years. Its absolute nadir came last February/March when a ludicrously fanciful buyout of the team imploded before take-off.

It would even have been funny if it hadn't wasted so much money and, more importantly, time of many people whose only motivation was to go racing.

Cyril Blais, team principal then as now, epitomises that last ethic. He's a hardcore grafter, who rose from quietly determined practitioner of the engineering arts in several formulas to land a big-time role amid the burning embers of a downtrodden MSG operation at the end of 2023.

At the Citroen launch in Paris last October, an off-the-record chat evidenced the strain that the previous months had put on the team. All you need to know is that there were a lot of deep exhalations during that conversation.

Just three months on and Citroen Racing is atop the points standings, and its new star signing Cassidy has a points advantage in the early knockings of a drivers' title chase. Early days, but expectations are being exceeded not just by the session but by the lap.

"We know where we finished last year in the championship, and we had a strong driver line-up [Stoffel Vandoorne, 14th, and Jake Hughes, 17th] as well," Blais tells The Race.

"But this one we have the strongest driver line-up, and it shows. But to be honest, after two races to be leading the drivers' championship, having a win, and a podium - and both times starting from so far back - no, it's not expected."

What Blais was expecting was a team on the up, now that it had surer footing from a technical resource perspective and, it has to be said, from a brand one, too.

It was at Cape Town in 2023 when The Race was surveying the Maserati MSG team rebuilding Edoardo Mortara's recently-shunted car. In the back of the garage James Rossiter, then team principal, paced up and down, probably wondering how the team was going to survive financially as its ownership team of Scott Swid and Jose Aznar got increasingly twitchy about their investment.

A rival team principal stood next to me and said: "Who the hell wants to buy an electric Maserati?"

An answer didn't take long to opine on. "Not many, right?" was my reply. It was a pithy exchange, also memorable because no one really got why Maserati was in Formula E at all, and sometimes you felt this included some of its executives.

The relevance of this anecdote is that the inherent instability of a brand that didn't really get Formula E or fit in, allied to a team that was not being invested in, meant that it was at best treading water, at worst an also-ran. It was both of these things on occasions, but it was also a sporadic winner. As achievements go, it is that which Blais and the Maserati MSG race winners Vandoorne and Maximilian Guenther should be proud of.

Plugging in Citroen to the grid slot felt so much more relevant for both brands' parent company Stellantis, and in many quarters it was just what the entry needed. But in some ways it could be viewed as a red, white and blue sticking plaster. The team is still without ownership and, as it stands, despite some people's erroneous opinions, it is not owned by Stellantis.

Technically, the team is still in the hands of Formula E Operations, and it is this where the bitter aftertaste to the feel-good resurrection of the team comes in for some of its rivals.

Formula E couldn't have this team go under, a focus intensified when McLaren also hit trouble around this time last year. When both outfits were on life support, it was ultimately the MSG side that stayed plugged into Formula E, even as a possible deal with Stellantis for McLaren started to form. That created some ill-feeling in the paddock because a healthy pony was seen as being sacrificed for a sick one.

Additionally, some teams and manufacturers have been, and this is being generous with wording, extremely disappointed that Citroen has been able to - or even allowed to - recruit from other teams. This has been particularly controversial considering that the team has been in the custodianship of the promoter due to the turbulence and debt accrued by MSG.

You can see the rivals' point. Several of them are struggling to make their financial way, too - yet don't have debt and have embraced investment leadership.

That's a sore topic in the paddock still. The reality on the track at present, however, is that Citroen is riding high, and from the perspective of its future it all looks pretty good. Except, there is still no owner of the team.

The Race understands that parties are interested and that discussions are ongoing, with a possible resolution in the first quarter of 2026.

For now, expectations may need suppressing a little, something which Blais will no doubt manage in his own quiet and authoritative way.

"I keep saying to the guys as well, 'You know, let's keep our feet on the ground'."

That's good advice from a man whose pragmatism has kept the team sane and functional over the last few seasons. Despite some volatility still in the air, the team now has a real future to chase after.