Discover more
There is an undisputed king among the teams in Formula E. The only team to have scored points in every race, the only team to have had both its drivers win a race, the only team to have won the Teams’ title. The one and only Renault e.dams.
Once again it stands on the verge on another historic weekend, with the team poised to secure a hat-trick of Teams’ championship, while Buemi has a small but significant points lead in his quest to defend his drivers’ crown.
Ahead of the Hydro-Quebec Montreal ePrix we caught up with Renault e.dams co-owner, Jean-Paul Driot.
Q: How frustrating was it to not have Sebastien Buemi racing for you in New York?
A: It’s more than frustrating, because I don’t understand how it can happen. We are both FIA championships, and this is something that shouldn’t happen. And on top of that we knew it from a long time ago and I am really upset that no solution was found.
Q: How hard did you try to get him to race?
A: Logistically, we had found a way of him qualifying at Nurburgring on Friday morning, catching a plane at Frankfurt to come to New York on Friday night. He would have arrived at a decent time – 9.30pm or something – and then do the Saturday full day and then fly back straight from New York, have a first class ticket to sleep very well on the plane and arrive in Frankfurt at about nine in the morning and if necessary catch a helicopter to get to the Nurburgring to be ready in the car for the Sunday afternoon race. Logistically it was perfectly feasible. We tried to discuss with Toyota and they were very concerned that if by any bad luck he was having a crash people would have thought it was because he was tired and so difficult to explain. My view that a driver is a human being. First of all he is very fit, he’s very young, I have spent nights and nights and nights in planes for 40 years and when you travel in good conditions the trip was very feasible. I agree that he has a contract with Toyota and that I don’t deny and they are totally entitled to take their decision but I think that when you have a driver that is leading the championship psychologically it’s quite tough to swallow. But this is their decision and I’m not contesting it, but the conclusion is that it should not have happened at all.
Q: Your team has scored points in every race, won both teams’ titles too. Have you been surprised by the level of success?
A: Before we had a good advantage with the car. But now when you see the results, DS Virgin is there, Mahindra is there, ABT is there, some others are coming from time to time and I always said it would be very difficult. Racing is racing, you don’t take your calculator and say I’m doing to do that that and that. It doesn’t exist. So until the chequered flag at the end of the year anything can happen one way or the other.
Q: Do you feel your team gets enough credit for the results it’s achieved?
A: The answer is in the first season. We all had the same car, the same powertrain and look what happened… I think there is no secret. There are some teams who have good cars and don’t know how to win with it. I think it’s true that we are really successful because of the very good and high level of the guys who are working in the team – engineers and mechanics – and we are delivering the performance. I tell you, even with a good car, without the right set-up you can forget about it.
Q: You have been strong all season, so why was Buemi off the pace in qualifying in Berlin?
A: Brakes. We have been working quite hard on brakes because on this car it’s very hard to have the brake balance really adapted to the circuit. And and each time we were doing something to the front we were downgrading the back and it was very difficult.
Q: DAMS has traditional run in spec series like GP2/F2, whereas e.dams is very closely linked to Renault. How do the two differ?
A: I think that working with a manufacturer, they have very good resources in human and technical in order to put together something that you know that is designed to maximize the team’s potential. They bring the right information, having the right feelings on the track and in which way we should work and in what would be much better for the car in the following year or the following race or whatever. As far as the development is concerned we do the development at the track. While you have homologated powertrain the development of the full race set-up is what you have to do. That and also the software and a manufacturer is very important in bringing you the software developments and technology and the right people in order to write new software. That’s the main thing. Even if we are very, very small compared to Renault, our ability to understand a track and the racing car and to make a car perform well is very well known and recognized by Renault. So the combination of both is bringing a very efficient result.
Q: There have been a lot of announcements about new manufacturers, how confident you can maintain advantage?
A: We are never confident in motor racing! It is clear that we see these big players coming in but Renault is quite a big player as well! We are working very close together and on the other side the FIA is controlling development in order to have a competitive level remaining among the teams and controlling the costs and not opening up too much the technology otherwise it’s a disaster. I think we might carry on competing with these newcomers.
Q: Is there much left in the package that you do for S4?
A: There is always something! The more you work on a car the more you know it there are little little things that at the end of the day might give you two tenths, three tenths. And three tenths here in qualifying for example can make a very big difference. And also managing the energy, controlling the energy, using less energy with more efficiency, these are the spaces where we are working more.
Q: Manufacturers traditionally come and go in motorsport, whereas DAMS has been competing solidly for 30 years. Could you carry on without Renault?
A: I think in this championship if you don’t have a manufacturer behind you it would be difficult. You could go with big companies who are good at producing electrical motors or invertors and you can work with Dallara and Xtrac for example, but you would have to put a package together which would not be impossible but much more difficult.
Q: How does racing in Formula E differ to the other championships at an emotional level?
A: At the beginning it was a lot of stress because there were a lot of parameters that we didn’t know and were brand new for us. When you are in F2 or GP3 or even Le Mans sitting on the wall, you know the parameters and normally you know how to control them the best. Here when we were in front of all these unknown parameters, we were so anxious. And even today, when you are leading or fighting you never know what can happen, it’s always a question mark in your head or hammer in your head, which can fall and kill you right away!