Nelson Piquet Jr and Oliver Turvey scored a double points finish for the NextEV NIO Formula E team by finishing in fifth and ninth respectively.
Both drivers had a strong qualifying session, making it through to Super Pole to fight it out for the top five positions. Piquet Jr set the fifth fastest time overall, while Turvey recorded a lap that put him fourth overall. Piquet Jr made a solid start to the 37-lap long Buenos Aires ePrix, maintaining fifth position until lap five, when he dropped to sixth behind Nicolas Prost. After the pitstop window, the Brazilian was back up to fifth, keeping a strong pace in the second stint, collecting 10 points in the end.
“Our goal this weekend was to have a clean race. We were able to have a bit of a battle here and there but in these kind of races you have to judge what is worth fighting and what we need to do to manage the energy, so I worked to manage the race as best I could. In general it was a satisfactory race and we can take positives in that we are not far off the leaders, which is good. We’ve worked hard the last few months and it shows that we are making progress”, Piquet Jr explained.
Turvey maintained position in the opening laps and overtook Lucas Di Grassi on lap six to take third position. The Briton made his mandatory pitstop on lap 19, continuing the race in sixth position. Some thermal issues with the car affected his performance for the remainder of the race; on lap 32 he moved back to eighth position. In addition, Daniel Abt passed Turvey on the penultimate, dropping the 29 year-old down to ninth position, collecting two points.
“I made a good start and felt good in the first part of the stint. When we made the pitstop it felt smooth, but when I came back out I had lost three positions so we need to understand what happened there. We struggled in the second stint with some thermal issues due to the high humidity. We have to take the positives from the weekend; having a car that we can fight for pole with and running in P3 in the first half of the race is a good place to be”, said Turvey.
The result saw NextEV NIO collect 12 championship points, which elevated them to fourth in the team standings, moving above MS Amlin Andretti and DS Virgin Racing. Team Principal Gérry Hughes set the course for the upcoming races and added: “We must remember this is only our third race together as a team and we will continue to focus forward and make progress in the coming race events.”
