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The 2016/17 version of the FIA Formula E Championship has been about one man so far: Sebastien Buemi.
The reigning champion has made the perfect defence of his championship, winning both races and amassing an impressive 22-point lead in the standings. For each of his 19 rivals, the fightback has to start in Buenos Aires on February 18.
It’s been three months since the last race in Marrakesh, giving plenty of time and opportunity for the others to enhance their set-ups and fine-tune their approach. Remarkably, Buemi’s average starting spot this season is sixth, so it’s not over one lap that the Renault e.dams driver is making his time, it’s during the full stints.
His Season 2 nemesis Lucas di Grassi remains his closest challenger, courtesy of a stunning comeback drive in Hong Kong, where the Brazilian and his Abt Schaeffler team worked in perfect harmony to rescue a fine second place against the odds.
He was never really a factor in Marrakesh, starting back in 12th after a disappointing qualifying, before once again maximizing his points haul by rising up the order to fifth in a race of few retirements.
Nico Prost has been a model of consistency in the second Renault e.dams, taking two fourth places, which puts him third in points.
The new Michelin tyres, the revamped battery and additional regen has shaken up the competitive order in Season 3 and in the two races that have taken place so far there have been two maiden pole sitters.
A crash-strewn qualifying session in Hong Kong meant the Super Pole shoot-out was cancelled and ensured that Nelson Piquet Jr and NextEV claimed the top stop. In Marrakesh a mix-up on the TECHEETAH pitwall meant that Jean-Eric Vergne – the fastest man in the groups stages – was stuck in the pitlane, and left Mahindra’s rising star Felix Rosenqvist to bag his and the team’s first pole.
Piquet’s hopes of glory were derailed when he was the innocent victim of Jose Maria Lopez’s unwinnable battle with a broken DS Virgin Racing car, while Rosenqvist put up a strong fight in Morocco, but was ultimately unable to hold back the tide of Buemi’s charge and slipped to third behind DS Virgin’s Sam Bird too.
Rosenqvist bagged a bonus point for fastest lap in Hong Kong, which puts him fourth in the standings, just ahead of Bird, whose podium-chasing race in the season-opener was derailed by his car failing in the pits. A similar fault blighted Piquet’s race in Marrakesh, leaving him back in 13th in the standings with only the bonus points for his Hong Kong pole to his name.
Nick Heidfeld got his season off to a strong start – quite literally as he sprinted off the line to make up three places on the opening lap in Hong Kong. He converted this into third place, but was hussled and hassled and battered and bruised during the opening stages of the race in Marrakesh before coming home ninth, which leaves him sixth in the points
Despite a poor qualifying – which included a big crash for Robin Frijns – the Andretti boys produced a strong result in Hong Kong, with Antonio Felix da Costa fifth and Frijns sixth. They were both hit by technical issues in Marrakesh, which has left them seventh and ninth in the points, sandwiched by NextEV’s Oliver Turvey, who’s been in the top eight in both races as the team recovers from a torrid Season 2.
Daniel Abt was taken out in the first-lap crash in Hong Kong, but drove a solid race in Morocco to sixth, which means he rounds out the top 10 in points.
It’s been a troubled start for Faraday Future Dragon Racing, with technical problems preventing Jerome D’Ambrosio and Loic Duval from showing their true pace. However, a canny drive from the former bagged a decent haul of points for seventh place in Hong Kong, while in between issues, Duval managed to set fastest lap in Marrakesh.
There has been plenty of promise but little in the way of hard results for the new TECHEETAH team so far. Vergne should probably have two podiums already but was one of the opening-lap victims in Hong Kong, while a drive-through penalty for pitlane speeding – the results of failed electrics in his steering wheel – dropped him to eighth in Marrakesh.
Maro Engel was the top rookie as he collected two points on his debut for Venturi, leading home team-mate Stephane Sarrazin in the process. Both were in the fight for the minor points in Marrakesh too, but fell just short.
The man who came in to nick the final point was Jose Maria Lopez, who’d starred in qualifying in Hong Kong on his DS Virgin Racing debut but brushed the wall on the exit of Turn 1 on the opening lap and was the walking wounded from there on. He was the only driver in the field with experience of the Circuit Moulay El Hassan in Marrakesh, but after countless spins and off-track excursions, he finally managed to pick up a point for his efforts.
Only three of the 20 drivers have yet to score a point, including both Panasonic Jaguar Racing drivers, and TECHEETAH’s Ma Qing Hua. Neither Mitch Evans nor Adam Carroll have come close to cracking the top 10 thus far, and of all the teams, it is the one that will be hoping to have made the most of the extended mid-season interval.
Whether it managed to make any inroads into the performance deficit its facing will become clear when the all-electric cars spark back into life in Argentina on February 18.
By Jessica Borrell
The 2016/17 version of the FIA Formula E Championship has been about one man so far: Sebastien Buemi.
The reigning champion has made the perfect defence of his championship, winning both races and amassing an impressive 22-point lead in the standings. For each of his 19 rivals, the fightback has to start in Buenos Aires on February 18.
It’s been three months since the last race in Marrakesh, giving plenty of time and opportunity for the others to enhance their set-ups and fine-tune their approach. Remarkably, Buemi’s average starting spot this season is sixth, so it’s not over one lap that the Renault e.dams driver is making his time, it’s during the full stints.
His Season 2 nemesis Lucas di Grassi remains his closest challenger, courtesy of a stunning comeback drive in Hong Kong, where the Brazilian and his Abt Schaeffler team worked in perfect harmony to rescue a fine second place against the odds.
He was never really a factor in Marrakesh, starting back in 12th after a disappointing qualifying, before once again maximizing his points haul by rising up the order to fifth in a race of few retirements.
Nico Prost has been a model of consistency in the second Renault e.dams, taking two fourth places, which puts him third in points.
The new Michelin tyres, the revamped battery and additional regen has shaken up the competitive order in Season 3 and in the two races that have taken place so far there have been two maiden pole sitters.
A crash-strewn qualifying session in Hong Kong meant the Super Pole shoot-out was cancelled and ensured that Nelson Piquet Jr and NextEV claimed the top stop. In Marrakesh a mix-up on the TECHEETAH pitwall meant that Jean-Eric Vergne – the fastest man in the groups stages – was stuck in the pitlane, and left Mahindra’s rising star Felix Rosenqvist to bag his and the team’s first pole.
Piquet’s hopes of glory were derailed when he was the innocent victim of Jose Maria Lopez’s unwinnable battle with a broken DS Virgin Racing car, while Rosenqvist put up a strong fight in Morocco, but was ultimately unable to hold back the tide of Buemi’s charge and slipped to third behind DS Virgin’s Sam Bird too.
Rosenqvist bagged a bonus point for fastest lap in Hong Kong, which puts him fourth in the standings, just ahead of Bird, whose podium-chasing race in the season-opener was derailed by his car failing in the pits. A similar fault blighted Piquet’s race in Marrakesh, leaving him back in 13th in the standings with only the bonus points for his Hong Kong pole to his name.
Nick Heidfeld got his season off to a strong start – quite literally as he sprinted off the line to make up three places on the opening lap in Hong Kong. He converted this into third place, but was hussled and hassled and battered and bruised during the opening stages of the race in Marrakesh before coming home ninth, which leaves him sixth in the points
Despite a poor qualifying – which included a big crash for Robin Frijns – the Andretti boys produced a strong result in Hong Kong, with Antonio Felix da Costa fifth and Frijns sixth. They were both hit by technical issues in Marrakesh, which has left them seventh and ninth in the points, sandwiched by NextEV’s Oliver Turvey, who’s been in the top eight in both races as the team recovers from a torrid Season 2.
Daniel Abt was taken out in the first-lap crash in Hong Kong, but drove a solid race in Morocco to sixth, which means he rounds out the top 10 in points.
It’s been a troubled start for Faraday Future Dragon Racing, with technical problems preventing Jerome D’Ambrosio and Loic Duval from showing their true pace. However, a canny drive from the former bagged a decent haul of points for seventh place in Hong Kong, while in between issues, Duval managed to set fastest lap in Marrakesh.
There has been plenty of promise but little in the way of hard results for the new TECHEETAH team so far. Vergne should probably have two podiums already but was one of the opening-lap victims in Hong Kong, while a drive-through penalty for pitlane speeding – the results of failed electrics in his steering wheel – dropped him to eighth in Marrakesh.
Maro Engel was the top rookie as he collected two points on his debut for Venturi, leading home team-mate Stephane Sarrazin in the process. Both were in the fight for the minor points in Marrakesh too, but fell just short.
The man who came in to nick the final point was Jose Maria Lopez, who’d starred in qualifying in Hong Kong on his DS Virgin Racing debut but brushed the wall on the exit of Turn 1 on the opening lap and was the walking wounded from there on. He was the only driver in the field with experience of the Circuit Moulay El Hassan in Marrakesh, but after countless spins and off-track excursions, he finally managed to pick up a point for his efforts.
Only three of the 20 drivers have yet to score a point, including both Panasonic Jaguar Racing drivers, and TECHEETAH’s Ma Qing Hua. Neither Mitch Evans nor Adam Carroll have come close to cracking the top 10 thus far, and of all the teams, it is the one that will be hoping to have made the most of the extended mid-season interval.
Whether it managed to make any inroads into the performance deficit its facing will become clear when the all-electric cars spark back into life in Argentina on February 18.
By Jessica Borrell