BIRD WINS IN SANTIAGO
B riton Sam Bird, who put Virgin Racing back in the winner’s circle in Chile, suffered a nervous end to the Formula E encounter. While the temperatures hit record highs, he was keeping an eagle eye on the heat of his battery.
He managed to keep it cool enough to see the chequered flag, but it was a close-run thing.
Last weekend, Santiago experienced unseasonably high temperatures, which got close to its official record for the time of year. In the process, with the race temperature peaking at 37.9ºc, the championship’s record of 35ºc from Putrajaya in the 2015/16 season was obliterated. What the dry, blazing heat meant for the teams and drivers were pre-race worries about how the new Gen2 machine would cope.
During the race, it meant the asphalt at the 1.45-mile Parque O’higgins track, melted and broke up – the cars physically carving rough lines at the most severe corners. There were concerns up and down the pitlane about how the batteries and tyres in particular would fare in the extreme conditions.
The race started at 1600hrs local time, and the 47m02.511s, 36-lap event would take in the peak of the day’s heat.
Sebastien Buemi lined up on pole for the Nissan e.dams squad – a fine reward for a rapid qualifying performance, which followed a heavy crash in FP1. But it was one that came after long-time rival Lucas di Grassi lost a dominant superpole display and P1 on the grid after falling foul of a new rule requiring drivers to brake in precisely the same way on their in-laps after a hot-lap in qualifying.
Alongside Buemi was Pascal Wehrlein, making just his second FE start for Mahindra Racing (and following a Marrakech race that barely lasted a corner). They were followed by Audi’s Daniel Abt and Virgin’s Bird.
When the lights went out, Buemi kept the lead off the line and held off Wehrlein through the early stages as Bird battled his way past Abt to run third by the end of the first lap. Buemi, possibly conscious of the need to push on when temperatures were under control, stretched out the buffer to Wehrlein and took his attack mode on lap six, with Bird doing likewise three tours later. This would be crucial for the outcome of the race.
Using the higher power available, Bird rocketed back to Werhlein and got past going into Turn 1. He shot after Buemi and the trio – with Wehrlein using his first attack mode immediately after being passed by Bird on lap 11 – edged clear of the pack.
They negotiated two full course yellow periods – the first to allow the stricken Dragon Racing car of Maxmilian Gunther, a star of qualifying with seventh on the grid in just his third FE event, to be recovered from the pit straight, and a second so debris caused by Stoffel Vandoorne hitting the wall at Turn 3 on lap 18 could be removed.
The second FCY left the top three running virtually nose to tail, and apparently set for a grandstand finish. That all changed over the final third.
First, on lap 22, Buemi crashed at the same Turn 7 right-hander where he had shunted heavily in practice – “fortunately he wasn’t injured,” e.dams manager Francois Sicard said of the first accident. In the race crash, the 2015/16 FE champion locked up going through the first part of the corner, got onto the broken asphalt that at this point was causing havoc for the pack, and slid into the wall. Buemi later said a software glitch played a part in both of his crashes.
That left Bird in the lead and having to defend hard against Wehrlein. The German driver took his final attack mode with just over six minutes and one lap of the race remaining. He closed right in on Bird and swarmed all over the British driver. It looked to be only a matter of time before he made a move for the lead, but the conditions came back to bite him. Mahindra warned Wehrlein his battery temperature was critical, and he was forced to back off.
This left Bird clear to take his eighth FE career win and became the only driver to have scored a victory in each of the series’s five seasons – only di Grassi can match him on this front if he can score a win later in the year.
Bird took the flag 6.489s clear of Wehrlein, with Alexander Sims taking third on the road, but being dropped to seventh for a clash with Edoardo Mortara. That meant Abt completed the podium ahead of Mortara, and Robinfrijns
Virgin team boss Sylvain Filippi later explained that given the concerns of the battery temperatures getting out of control on an exponential curve, the team had adopted a “linear” approach to the race. This meant Bird had to produce a level performance all the way through, attack early and clinically when temperatures were low, then manage his pace evenly. He did it masterfully, although said he was “close” to hitting the 72ºc battery shutdown mark towards the end.
“It was different, it was strange,” Bird said of the boiling race. “I could manage the energy OK but it was just the battery temperature that was critical and difficult. But the team managed it very well – they kept me calm, told me what to do and I think we managed it perfectly.”