The Lion and The Professor. That's not some misplaced Greek parable, but rather the make-up of DS Penske's Formula E strike force this season - at least according to one of its senior figures.
Double Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne continues to lead DS Penske in the 2024-25 campaign. But Maximilian Guenther has been brought in from Maserati MSG to replace 2022 title-winner Stoffel Vandoorne as his team-mate.
"I have this real tendency to give nicknames to the drivers," deputy team principal and team president Phil Charles said at the Jarama test last November.
"I've worked with Jean-Eric in the past and he was always 'The Lion'. When he's in the car he comes alive and he's a race day animal, so he's a lion for me.
"What you get with Max is that he's a professor of the sport. That's what I've nicknamed him.
"He studies, he works hard and he has an amazing approach to how he goes racing.
"So what we've got is really complementary characters, complementary skillsets and approaches to the team.
"Each of them gets different things out of our group of people and that makes me really excited as we put together a blend of people that help the group as a whole force."
It's an amusingly elaborate way of saying that DS Penske has got what it didn't have with Vergne and Vandoorne during the previous two seasons. Two drivers that, while not quite being polar opposite, do at least offer very different ways of working.
Guenther's reputation within the team is already strong after a solid testing period and outqualifying his team-mate in Sao Paulo. He was the one who made the duel phase and, although early days, maybe it was a little marker on Vergne's card.
While Vergne's race was spoiled by misfortune when he lost the majority of his attack mode boost at the first red flag, Guenther's featured his usual blend of strong pace and ruthless defence and attack.
It involved contact along the way - almost terminal contact, too, via an incident with Nick Cassidy that ultimately inadvertently triggered the shunt that left Pascal Wehrlein inverted and Guenther expressing deep concern for the Porsche driver over his team radio.
Guenther is as brutal as any in battle but as Charles pointed out this belies a studious approach to his job sometimes.
What does his arrival mean for Vergne and the team for 2025?
Vergne has coped with very quick team-mates before, even when they have generally got the better of him (though that's a rare event).
Sam Bird mostly did so in Vergne's worst Formula E season of 2015-16 at DS Virgin. But the most obvious case study was in 2019-20 when Antonio Felix da Costa arrived at Vergne's DS Techeetah manor.
The boiling point was reached early in just the third race in Santiago in January when Vergne baulked a quicker da Costa and sent his new team-mate into a towering rage - with justification, as a likely win (ultimately claimed by Guenther, then at BMW) withered away partly because of Vergne's antics in a damaged car.
Da Costa said over the team radio that day: "Man, JEV! This is not how a factory driver works. You understand?
"His car is smoking like f***. He's not moving out of the way.
"He's closing the f***ing door. F***ing idiot. We can win this f***ing race."
Guenther is a very different animal on the radio and rarely displays his emotions, although when he does it's almost painful to listen to, as those who heard the primal scream that came from his cockpit after clipping a wall while in third position at the 2023 Cape Town E-Prix will know.
Highlighting this is relevant because Vergne has a tendency to toy with his competitors. He's a lion clawing at them if you will. Even if it's a team-mate, so be it.
Will this happen in 2025? If Guenther becomes a serious thorn in his paw you can bet on it.
But so far all is quiet and the lion has welcomed the professor, the two appearing to get along just fine despite being vastly different characters. Vergne told The Race in Sao Paulo that he was "very pragmatic" and he "only sees the results and I think we've had a better season last year [2024] than the one before [2023]".
"The race performance has been improved and the qualifying performance last year was very good too," he said. "As long as I keep seeing the progress that we made last year into this year, I think I'm going to be happy."
When asked if, almost a year on from his former Toro Rosso Formula 1 engineer Charles coming to DS Penske, the team had evolved positively, Vergne said: "He [Charles] has his own way of doing things and I'm absolutely not questioning any of that.
"I'm just here to perform as best as I can and also learn from him and all the new people that he brought because I always have new things to learn. I'm also here to try and improve myself.
"So far, they have helped me a lot in understanding more details, more things and probably being better than what I used to be. I think on that end it is all good."
The changes to the team since Charles joined officially last March have been vast.
Vergne's long-time engineer Thibault Arnal left for Maserati MSG, team manager Nigel Beresford also departed last April, while influential technical chief Leo Thomas moved over to Stellantis Motorsport to cover off the departed Thomas Chevaucher, who headed to the FIA. There have been many more comings and goings, including of course Vandoorne (who's essentially swapped seats with Guenther at Maserati).
Vergne got much the better of his fellow Formula E champion Vandoorne over two seasons, although Vergne never looked like stagnating because of it.
He isn't wired to rest on his laurels and there is a good case for stating that he drove better than ever during the previous two campaigns, although seldom was he rewarded properly for his performances in a package that wasn't quite there.
That should change in 2025, and his win drought, now 23 months long, is expected to come to an end.
The lion is hungry.
