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Disappointing end to Dragon’s day in Malaysia

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It is now being referred to as ‘the best race Formula E has ever seen’ by fans and media alike, however the Putrajaya ePrix didn’t leave the Dragon team jumping for joy – quite the opposite in fact. Despite their extremely promising pace in various sessions over the weekend, neither Loic Duval nor Jerome D’Ambrosio finished the race on Saturday. Both drivers have now spoken out about their disappointment from race day.

The weekend looked to be Duval’s strongest performance to date, setting the fastest time in practice by +0.084 over Buemi’s e.dams, despite the fact this was his first time at the track with Formula E. This impressive standard continued into qualifying and saw Duval make it into the new ‘Super Pole’ shoot out which sees the five fastest racers battle for the pole position on race day. This saw the Frenchman secure third place on the grid ahead of the ePrix on Saturday.

As the cars lined the grid on Saturday, it became apparent that car number four, belonging to Stephane Sarrazin, had an issue before lights out and had to be wheeled from the second place grid position he had secured in qualifying – one less car for Duval to overtake for the race. As the race begun, Duval kept pace with leader Buemi well, and did not let him get a big gap. After Buemi suffered a software issue on lap 15 and had to pit, the French driver found himself in the lead. However, it began to emerge that Loic’s luck had lost its way and soon the Dragon’s driver found himself involved in a series of unfortunate events.

As drivers began to take their mid-race pit stops, confusion hit the Dragon team and they ended up holding Loic longer than they needed to. As the rules are in Formula E, the pit stops have a minimum time to make sure the transition from one car to the other is safe. In this instance, the timings were muddled and Duval ended up slotting behind Lucas di Grassi, the car that would go onto to win the race, as well as behind Antonio Felix da Costa. Duval later told the official Formula E site that he lost six seconds in the disordered pit-stop: “I was easily leading the race and could probably made another lap before the pitstop but played it safe. I don’t know what happened but the team didn’t release me and I lost six seconds.”

This pit stop was the first nail in Duval’s coffin, and he would then face a broken damper on the rear of the car, which consequently ended his race three laps before the chequered flag. Duval explained: “I was down in fourth and fought my way back to second. But the rear suspension broke, probably the damper.” A similar failure was also experienced by the other Dragon car of Jerome d’Ambrosio, leading to the Belgian’s retirement from the final stages of the race too.

Jerome, who was in second place on the final lap, lost control of his car as a result of the failure and hit the wall giving Briton Sam Bird second position. After the disappointing day, d’Ambrosio said on his official instagram account: “Tough to have a suspension failure four corners from the end after such great work and team effort all day! We will come back stronger in Punta.”

The Putrajaya ePrix certainly proved exciting for fans but many teams lost out dearly after several reliability issues – with Dragon possibly the worst hit. Speaking with the official Formula E site, d’Ambrosio reflected: “It’s a real pity because we were looking strong for second and third for the team then we lost both cars towards the end. We showed good pace in qualifying and the race. That’s racing and it happens but we have to know what happened as Punta del Este is tough on the suspension and dampers.”

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Image courtesy of FIA Formula E Media

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