Impressive start to season for Turvey

CUMBRIA’S Oliver Turvey is excited for the season ahead after a strong start to his 2021 Formula E campaign.

The Penrith driver is confident he and NIO 333 squad can enjoy their strongest year yet after picking up points in the first two rounds.

The 2021 season kicked off with back to back rounds at Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, with round one on Friday followed by the second last night.

Turvey, who has been part of the NIO squad since the championship started back in 2014, was determined to hit the ground running and make amends for what was a tough year for the squad in 2020.

Under the floodlights, Turvey was straight on the pace and celebrated a top 10 and his first point on Friday evening.

Still riding high from scoring the team’s first point since 2019, he continued to push during yesterday’s qualifying, ending the session fourth ahead of last night’s race.

At the start he got a clean getaway and managed to hold his position through the opening laps, before dropping a place on the 11th lap.

Pushing on, he dropped another two places over the next few laps but after holding seventh for a number of laps, he lost out after a yellow flag period and dropped back to 10th .

It took just a lap to find a way past fellow Brit Tom Blomqvist and he continued to creep forward, moving up to eighth with around 15 minutes to run.

But 10 minutes from the flag the safety car was deployed after a handful of cars crashed out just behind him, forcing a clean-up operation before the race was red-flagged two minutes before it was due to end.

As a result, Turvey crossed the line eighth to pick up another four points and now sits 15th in the standings after the opening round.

“It’s been a great start to the year and we’ve made some good steps forward this weekend,” he said last night.

“I had a great race yesterday and scored my first point of the year – which is already an improvement on our results last year – so I went out for the second race to hopefully score some more.

“It’s a real shame the race had to end under a red flag but it’s a positive start to the year.

“We’ve made great steps forward since last season and it’s the perfect way to start the new season.”

Holland’s Nyck de Vries leads the championship after the first two rounds, closely followed by Britain’s Sam Bird who took his first win since joining the

Jaguar squad.

The Formula E series now takes a several week break and will resume in Italy for the

Rome E-prix on April 10.