NEXTEV’s Oliver Turvey took home points for finishing seventh, while Nelson Piquet Jr finished out of the points due to an issue in the mandatory pitstop in yesterday’s Marrakesh ePrix.
Oliver Turvey began the 33-lap long race from eighth position. The 29-year-old maintained eighth position through to lap 15, when he was passed by Lucas Di Grassi (ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport), putting him into ninth. Turvey made his pitstop on lap 17 and gained a position, emerging in eighth. He had a strong second stint, even passing Jean Eric Vergne (Techeetah FE Team) on the last lap to finish in seventh which saw the Briton collecting six points.
“After I was able to create a gap to the guys behind, I maintained our energy targets and kept a consistent pace. The pitstop went well and the second stint was pretty consistent. We want to be higher up but to score another six points is good”, Turvey concluded.
Photo: Alastair Staley/LAT/Formula E
Nelson Piquet Jr finished fifth overall in qualifying, which put him through to Super Pole, where he qualified fourth. Because of the penalty for Sébastien Buemi (Renault e.dams), Piquet Jr was promoted to start third in the race. The Brazilian drove solid first stint, coming in for his mandatory pitstop on lap 16 in fifth position after losing places to Jean-Éric Vergne ( Techeetah FE Team) and Buemi.
“It’s been a difficult day. When I came in for the car change we had an electrical issue which lost us a lot of time and at that point it was game over. It’s very frustrating so now we have to investigate what happened so it doesn’t repeat. There’s a big break now until the Buenos Aires race in February so we will look to come back strong”, Piquet Jr explained who crossed the line in 16th, with a large time deficit to the remainder of the grid.
Acting Team Principal Gerry Hughes pointed out that the team has to concentrate on improving their race pace: “Starting from P3 and P8 on the grid respectively meant that we were well positioned for a strong performance in the race. Although Nelson suffered an electrical issue during the car change which effectively ended his race. Oliver struggled with some brake issues in the second stint, which hampered his progress. Now we have more work to do to improve our race pace compared to our performances over a single lap.”
