e.dams’ championship takes a blow in Long Beach

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Talk of the dominance of Renault e.dams was brought to an abrupt half at Long Beach, when neither driver managed to finish inside the top ten. The team keeps its team championship lead, just, but Sebastien Buemi now drops to one point behind the new driver championship leader, Lucas Di Grassi.

The e.dams cars were out of position on the grid, starting seventh and eighth when neither driver managed to make it into the Super Pole shoot out. There was no dramatic mistake from Buemi on his qualifying run this time around, but he still couldn’t put in a time fast enough to stay in the top five.

[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“It was a really bad day for me and for the whole team,” said Buemi. “I made a mistake trying to close in on Robin Frijns and I can only apologise to him, his team and of course everyone at Renault e.dams.”[/pullquote]

It looked like a good start for the e.dams pair, with Buemi setting a fastest lap and making up positions, before running into the back of Robin Frijns’ Amlin Andretti. Whether it was a brain fade or cracking under the pressure, the move cost both drivers heavily. Buemi’s front wing was badly damaged and he came into the pits to change cars, knowing it was too early to competitively complete the race.

Buemi did manage to set the fastest lap in his second car, salvaging two points from the race. He finished sixteenth after having to serve a drive through penalty for the collision with Frijns.

Team mate Nico Prost looked to be having a better day, and was running in fourth after a very quick mid-race car swap. A little too quick, as Prost was a second under the minimum pit stop time, and was handed a drive through penalty for the incident. He finished eleventh.

[pullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“Things were going really well for me running in fourth position before the drive-through,” said Prost. “We were looking good for the rest of the race and I think we could have even been in with a chance of a podium finish, so it was frustrating for such a small mistake to result in the penalty. Today has been another day for us to learn from as I really want to come back very strong for my home race in Paris.”[/pullquote]

Senior Team Manager Jean-Paul Driot said: “On behalf of the team I apologise to Nico as the drive-through was not his fault and he could have finished possibly on the podium.”

So, a series of mistakes, or finally a chink in the Renault e.dams armour? Well, the team seem to believe it might be a mixture of the two.

[pullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Vincent Gaillardot, Renault Sport Project Leader, said: “This weekend we were less competitive than we were in the first half of the season. This is something which we are clearly analysing as we need to understand if this is because of any particular issue we have or because our rivals have been making strong progress.”[/pullquote]

Either way, they’ll want to sort the problem out quickly, before Formula E returns to Europe. The next race in Paris will be the team’s home race, and they will not want a repeat of Long Beach in front of the home crowd.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Image courtesy of FIA Formula E Media

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]