Mixed day for FE rookies at Hong Kong debut
With four full-time rookies starting their Formula E careers this weekend, it’s been a mixed first day in the office for them in Hong Kong. A strong showing and first points for half of them, two ending the race at the back with significant issues.
Venturi driver Edoardo Mortara had a very shaky qualifying, starting from the back of the grid. Having crashed while setting his 200kw lap, he also affected teammate Maro Engel’s chances, as his teammate was just behind him. However, from 19th place on the grid he went on to finish 8th, promoted to 7th by a retrospective drive-through penalty for Felix Rosenqvist.
Mortara himself seemed less happy with bis performance, telling e-racing.net the race had been a learning experience rather than a triumph; “I think I learned many things today. The good thing when you have massive problems everywhere, you know you have to do everything by yourself and so you probably learn a lot more when it’s like this.”
Similarly unhappy, Neel Jani had an extremely difficult race that needed at the back, “I think I can’t remember such a bad race day in my career for a long, long time. Just, you know, a compilation of issues – problems, difficulties, just a compilation and you can’t have that here.
“Obviously struggling a lot with energy management in the race it was not working, having let’s say no radio so no help. So I just try to finish and you know find a few laps, get more experience. We have to find out what the difference is between the two cars because the second car was massively slower than the first one, over a second – we don’t know why so that’s something we have to figure out. As I say, a compilation of problems and we have no idea where we were.
“Honestly, I took it as a practice session in the end because there was nothing to gain, nothing to lose it was just everything. The first stint you know I was at least with Andre and everyone but the second stint I was nowhere, I was dead so we’ll have to find out.”
Fellow rookie Andre Lotterer, whose race was compromised by contact on lap one that caused the entire ePrix to be red flagged for 15 minutes, said it had been a good but difficult experience, “That was very tricky and also with the red flagged situation the energy was reset so we didn’t really know how much we used and with no radio it was very tricky. Obviously I wish I wouldn’t have been stuck in the barrier but I couldn’t do it any other way, I had to avoid Piquet and take some margin and then the next thing I know, I was in the barrier. It happens so fast it’s crazy, in the first corner – you can’t do anything.”
Lotterer himself was excluded from the race, penalised four times for various infractions including a cooling pod of dry ice being left on his car at the race start and leaving his car in an unsafe mode in Parc Ferme, meaning it was held in scrutineering until late in the evening.
The other rookie to suffer a penalty was Luca Filippi, awarded a drive through for a collision with Felix Rosenqvist – however, he finished in the points and remained upbeat, tweeting “P10 in my very first @FIAFormulaE #eprix! 1 point and onto the tomorrow next race! Still thinking what it could have been without the drive through… but that’s racing!”
All four rookies will get another chance to perfect their Formula E technique tomorrow in race two of the Hong Kong E-Prix.
No part of this website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified, adapted, used or distributed without the prior written consent of the author. e-racing.net is not responsible for the content of external sites or links.