AUDI INFORMULA E HITS THE FRONT
DANIEL ABT BREAKS VICTORY DUCK
One hop, one step – one car to another. Belts done up, Daniel Abt was out in a flash. Out of the pits, out in the lead of the Mexico City eprix, and on his way to the glory of a first Formula E victory.
After being heartbreakingly denied a maiden win in Hong Kong on his 25th birthday last December due to a technical passport infringement, Abt kept the trophy for good and rescued a dismal start to Audi’s first season as a works FE manufacturer.
Starting fifth, Abt immediately seized fourth around the outside of Antonio Felix da Costa at Turn 1, and set off in pursuit of polesitter Felix Rosenqvist, NIO’S Oliver Turvey and 2015/16 FE champion Sebastien Buemi. His rise to victory was aided by two slices of fortune – first Rosenqvist dropped out of a secure lead at one-third distance with battery failure, and then Buemi made a mistake at the first corner on lap 21 of 47. The Renault e.dams driver slid wide and Abt steamed through.
Abt closed on Turvey, who had been looking good after gapping Buemi early on at the scene of his first FE pole one year ago – a race that was ended by a technical failure while he led – before he struggled with energy management in the final laps of the stint.
The “key for the victory” Abt jubilantly explained afterwards, was the pitstops. The German driver leapt between his two cars and emerged easily ahead of Turvey, who had had a slight gearbox problem pulling away in his second machine, but didn’t think that cost him the place.
“We’d worked on [the swaps] very hard and the mechanics are incredibly fast,” Abt added. “I don’t know how they did that today.”
Although the Audi mechanics were able to service Abt quickly, at the Techeetah team things were not so smooth. Andre Lotterer clipped a mechanic as he pulled away – the first victim of the controversial minimum pitstop time removal from earlier in the season – copping a drive-through penalty that dropped him from seventh to 13th, and injuring ligaments in his servicer’s right leg.
Barring a slide in the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez’s stadium section with five laps to – “it got my heart rate a bit up” – Abt eased clear to win by 6.398 seconds. Turvey kept a resurgent Buemi at bay to claim his first FE podium, with Nelson Piquet Jr fourth for Jaguar after charging up the order in his second car after running longer in the first stint.
Although Piquet made bold moves on Jean-eric Vergne, who finished fifth, and team-mate Mitch Evans (sixth), his charge was stunted when he reach Buemi’s tail and, disappointingly, there was no grandstand finish.
Turvey was “relieved to cross the line and get the first podium for the team”, which has not seen a trophy since Piquet won in Moscow in FE’S inaugural season – then known as China Racing. Buemi, who had been up and down all day with so-so practice times, topping the qualifying group phase and then blowing his superpole lap, was pleased to recover from a difficult first half of the race. He said: “In the end, I’m still quite happy because that’s my 20th podium in Formula E and it’s better than nothing.”
Although he is now 29 points off standings leader Vergne, the Toyota LMP1 driver insists he is not in the title hunt: “I don’t consider myself in contention for the championship because I’m not quick enough.”
Rosenqvist, the star of the day until his issue stopped him at the butchered Peraltada corner, plans to “forget and just pretend that when we come to Punta del Esta [the points are] the same as we came here”, as he is still second in the standings, 12 points adrift.
Vergne refused to be frustrated with fifth as he had “basically had no idea what was going on” in his second car as his dash, radio, and energylevel beep systems were all off-line. He was more agitated to be passed by a Fanboost-armed Buemi, who he had jumped in the car swaps, with the pair having a frank discussion about the voting system after the race.
Lucas di Grassi produced what he called “one of my best races in Formula E” to rise from last on the grid, where he was condemned to start by a penalty for an inverter issue that forced him out in Chile, and having to set a lap in the first qualifying group on the dusty track.
The reigning champion fought to ninth and clinched one extra point for the fastest lap, but did make contact with Jose Maria Lopez and an unimpressed Maro Engel during his charge back through.
After becoming the first German driver to score a FE win, Abt rued the 25 points he had lost in Hong Kong. “It would be nice to have [them] because then we would be really in the hunt for the championship,” he said.
“But it’s still not over, we’re strong, we can still do it.” With seven races to go that is not out of the question.