After a weekend that featured a non-stop threat of rain, the Paris ePrix stayed dry and ran under clear blue skies. In addition, Robin Frijns scored eight points, which saw the MS Amlin Andretti sun shining bright once again.
Frijns put it together in the qualifying session, finishing just outside of Super Pole, to start the race from seventh, while his team-mate struggled to find grip and found himself further back down the grid in 17th. Both drivers were racing a smart, clean race when trouble came toward the end of the first stint; a battle for position between António Félix da Costa and Lucas Di Grassi (Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport) turned into contact, with the No. 28 car of Félix da Costa finding the wall.
“It was obviously a frustrating weekend. We will try and investigate what went wrong. We have some good data to look at and will try and build on that for the next one. It’s been a frustrating couple of months of my racing career. With all these bad things happening, we need to catch a break. It comes and goes, so we will keep on pushing and look forward to Berlin”, explained Félix da Costa.
Frijns made a clean stop during the safety car and stayed competitive for the rest of the race and finished P5 on the track. However, a five-second penalty was handed out for speeding during a full-course yellow, dropping Frijns back to P6.
“It was one of the more bizarre races in my career. I think luck was definitely on our side. I was fighting with Gutiérrez the whole race and overtook him in the second car, which was good. Then Di Grassi was behind me and got a drive-through penalty, which put Prost behind me, who was a bit faster than me, but the safety car came out.
Then I had a five-second penalty which wasn’t so lucky but rules are rules. In the end, Abt had an issue and slowed everybody down which helped us. It’s been a long time since I’ve had points and to finish P6 is really important for the team and for me”, said Frijns.
“It’s amazing how much a good result lifts the spirits of the people in the garage. Speaking for António, we are disappointed for him, involved in what appeared to be an unnecessary collision with another competitor. That ended his race and he never got the opportunity to progress further through the field.
On the other side of the garage with Robin, what we’ve shown is if we can have a good starting position in qualifying then we just make life a lot easier for ourselves. We found a few things for qualifying and then Robin drove a really smart race. He overtook a couple of cars with some aggressive but clean moves, meeting all of his energy targets, bringing the car home in sixth place.
It’s good for the team to get those extra points and move up a spot in the team championship. With six more races to go, the next stop is Berlin and we are looking forward to trying to consistently be in a points scoring position”, summarised Co-Team Principal Roger Griffiths.
The Andretti Formula E team leaves France having moved up to seventh in the team championship standings with 26 points. The team aims to build on this result in Berlin, to be able to catch up to sixth place, which is currently held by Techeetah with 45 points.
