Formula E: Frustration after Buemi's mistake
ZERO NUMBER IN URUGUAY At the sixth round of the FIA Formula E season, Sébastien Buemi came away empty-handed after making a mistake. The Renault driver had won each of the two previous races in Uruguay. Winner Jean-Eric Vergne pulls away in front at the halfway point of the championship. The starting position for Sébastien Buemi was not quite as good as in the previous races. As [...]
The starting position for Sébastien Buemi was not quite as good as in the previous races. However, as sixth on the grid, another podium was well within reach for the winner of the two previous races on the 2.7-kilometer circuit in Punta del Este.
But this year things are not going so well for the Vaudois. At the start he initially lost two places, which he made up with nice overtaking maneuvers past Sam Bird and André Lotterer until the first neutralization of the race.
After the restart, Buemi unfortunately attacked Daniel Abt, the winner of the last race in Mexico, on the dirty side of the track and touched the wall. In the process, the Swiss damaged the right rear suspension of his Renault Z.E.17.
The forced switch to the second car all too early was linked to the hope that further incidents would result in safety car phases that would save energy. But this did not happen and Buemi had to retire with eight laps to go without a supply of E-Power.
Sébastien Buemi: "That was a bad day for me. I'm sorry for the team. Unfortunately, I can't undo the mistake and the disappointing race. So all I can do is take the positive aspect to the next race, namely that we would have been fast enough for the podium. Because when I hit the wall, I was ahead of Sam Bird, who finished third."
Strong performance from Jean-Eric Vergne
At the halfway point of the championship, the champion of the second 2015/16 season is still in fourth position with 52 points despite the zero points from Uruguay. However, he is already more than twice as far behind championship leader Jean-Eric Vergne.
The Frenchman celebrated his second victory of the season in impressive fashion. Under permanent pressure from Lucas di Grassi in the Audi e-tron FE04, Vergne led the e-race car of the Renault customer team Techeetah from the start to the finish after 37 laps.
With identical times of 1:13.672, both beat Buemi's previous lap record by almost 4 seconds and his earlier qualifying best by 1.4 seconds. For the defending champion from Brazil, this was the first podium of what has so far also been an unsuccessful season.
This short video sequence shows how close it was between Di Grassi and Vergne in the final phase:
"Hey Siri, what does wheel-to-wheel racing look like?" #PuntaDelEsteEPrix pic.twitter.com/mX7EG0lRxS
- ABB FIA Formula E World Championship (@FIAFormulaE) March 17, 2018
The next race - the first of four in Europe - takes place in Rome on April 14. After that, it's the turn of Paris (April 28) and Berlin (May 19), before the whole electric troop comes to Zurich on the weekend of June 10.
