Turvey to race in Berlin – what it means for NextEV

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After previously announcing that Ben Hanley would replace Oliver Turvey in the Berlin ePrix, NextEV TCR have today confirmed that Turvey will in fact drive in the German capital.

This has come about due to the Super GT race in Autopolis on May 21st-22nd, in which Turvey was expected to compete, being postponed to an unspecified later date. Recent earthquakes in the Kumamoto region of Japan have led to the postponement. The team have therefore confirmed that Turvey will now drive in Berlin, meaning Ben Hanley will not make his debut in the series later this month.

Martin Leach, President of NextEV, explained: “We are pleased that Oliver is able to compete in Berlin for NextEV TCR, we just wish it wasn’t under such circumstances. Everyone at the team was shocked to hear about the earthquakes and we are thinking about those living on Kyushu. I would also like to say thank you to Ben Hanley for his understanding and wish him well in his racing in the European Le Mans Series this season.”

The team will now benefit from continuity behind the wheel in Berlin. Turvey has driven the NEXTEV TCR FormulaE 001 from its track debut in Donington Park last August onwards, collecting bags of experience in an innovative twin-motor machine that has proven difficult to set up and drive during the season so far.

Despite the difficulties Turvey and champion team-mate Nelson Piquet Jr have faced, British driver Turvey has managed to work on reducing the gap in qualifying between himself and the first placed driver considerably; see the below graph in which, apart from Mexico City where the team was not able to find an optimal setup for the car, there is a visible downward trend in the gap between Turvey and the quickest time in qualifying.

[/vc_column_text][vc_line_chart type=”line” x_values=”Beijing;Putrajaya;Punta del Este;Buenos Aires;Mexico City;Long Beach;Paris” values=”%5B%7B%22title%22%3A%22Gap%20to%20P1%22%2C%22y_values%22%3A%222.246%3B1.790%3B1.143%3B0.890%3B2.499%3B1.131%3B0.978%22%2C%22color%22%3A%22vista-blue%22%7D%5D” title=”Turvey’s gap to P1 in qualifying this season”][vc_column_text]

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Turvey: “First of all, my thoughts go out to everyone affected by the earthquakes that have hit Kyushu. […] I hope we can race there later in the year for all the fans in the Kyushu region. It now means that I am available to race in the next round of the Formula E Championship. I’m looking forward to racing on this new track and will be pushing for a strong points finish.”[/pullquote]

The first race of the season saw a large 2.246 second gap between Turvey and first placed man Sebastien Buemi, as Turvey could only qualify P15. Fast forward to Buenos Aires, where he was able to qualify P11 just 0.890 off pole, or last time out in Paris where he took a season-best P7 on the grid with a 0.978 gap, and it’s clear that real progress has been made.

It has been a tough season for NextEV and they have only scored points three times, with Turvey achieving this twice. Yet the past races have shown great promise for the Chinese squad, and they were desperately unlucky not to pocket some points in Paris as we analysed in our “Closed Circuit” piece after the Paris ePrix. As mentioned, Turvey qualified P7 while Piquet Jr was 9th on the grid, yet a loss of power for Piquet and a slow pit-stop for Turvey cost them any chance of points.

It is clear that NextEV are just one trouble-free weekend away from scoring some more points and continuing their upward trajectory this season. While both championships are long gone, the team could conceivably catch the likes of Team Aguri and Amlin Andretti ahead of them if they string together a few strong weekends. Having Turvey behind the wheel in Berlin will help this cause, as he will simply have to learn the new circuit in the German capital rather than also learning a new car, as Hanley would have done.

Hanley, a former Formula Renault 3.5 runner-up and expert kart racer, is an experienced driver – however his last single seater experience was six years ago, and he has never driven the Formula E car in anger. Today’s news is a real positive for NextEV, who can focus purely on setup and performance in Berlin, and not worry about getting a new driver up to speed.

It will be fascinating to see if Turvey and his NextEV squad can continue to cut the gap to those in front in Berlin. Let us not forget: the Trulli team surprised everyone in Berlin last year, taking pole and P11 on the grid after a season full of technical troubles. If NextEV can get it all together this time around, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we could see something similar.

All of us at e-racing.net would like to express our sympathies to anyone affected by the Kumamoto earthquakes.

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Images courtesy of Rajan Jangda

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