Renault e.dams leaves Monaco with a return to that winning feeling: from pole to victory, Sébastien Buemi scored a total of 28 points, whilst from the back of the grid, Nico Prost made a strong comeback to finish in the points with ninth place.
Sébastien Buemi was the first driver to dip under the 53s barrier and he also bettered his own lap time from 2015 by 1.6s. The Swiss continued in the same way in qualifying, setting the fastest lap 0.237s ahead of Lucas Di Grassi (ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport). Afterwards the 28-year-old managed to lead the rest of the pack after Turn 1 as well as at the restart after a safety car period due to a collision between Jean-Eric Vergne (Techeetah) and Nelson Piquet Jr (NextEv).
Towards the end of the race, the battle between Buemi and his closest rival Di Grassi was tight, but the Swiss managed to secure his fourth win of the season. “I am really happy to be winning again. I was quicker the first half of the race and everything was under control, so I managed to build a gap between Lucas and myself in case of a safety car. On the second stint, I was struggling to match his pace, so basically I did the entire race looking in the mirrors.
“It was in the second car where I had less pace, so we need to understand why this was. In general, we changed the set-up of the second car a little bit, in order to use the extra grip of the circuit. If you want the perfect car, sometimes it needs adjustments. I am still very happy with that result and I am looking forward to go to Paris next week”, said Buemi.
Team-mate Nico Prost had to settle for P19, after clipping a barrier at the start of his flying lap in qualifying. Starting from the back of the grid, with only a few overtaking opportunities in the narrow streets, Prost experienced a rather difficult race. However the Frenchman managed to carve his way through the field and overtook the drivers in front of him, one by one.
Prost was determined to score more points for the team and finished in tenth position. Following the race, António Félix da Costa (MS Amlin Andretti) was penalised for an unsafe release, thus promoting him to ninth. “I had a disappointing result in qualifying but overall it was a great race. When you start from the back of the grid in Monaco, you don’t expect much
I just need to understand why we are not that competitive in qualifying. We need to put everything together and then we will fight for podium at every race”, explained Prost.
Renault e.dams defends its lead in the team championship with a total of 151 points. This win for Buemi means that he is now 15 points ahead of Di Grassi, leading the Drivers’ standings with 104 points. Next up is the Paris ePrix on 20th May, a back-to-back race for the first time since season 1.
