Nelson Piquet Jr was once again left to wonder what might have been after an electrical issue cost him the chance of a points finish in the Marrakesh ePrix.
Piquet qualified on the second row of the grid, and although he was passed by Sebastien Buemi and Jean-Eric Vergne in the early stages, was running strongly in fifth when he came in for his car change.
An electrical issue with his second car meant that he lost 51 seconds in the pits, which brought him out near the back of the field in eighteenth.
“It’s been a difficult day,” Piquet said. “We were having an okay race but I knew I couldn’t fight too much against Sebastian and Jean Eric, so I kept to my strategy.
“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.”
It was a more positive result for his team-mat Oliver Turvey however, who started in eighth and finished one place higher in seventh.
The British driver said it was a lonely race, but that he was happy to get more point on the board.
“I got a good start and held position. After that I was able to create a gap to the guys behind, maintained our energy targets and kept a consistent pace.
“The pitstop went well and the second stint was pretty consistent.
“I was on my own most of the race, but it’s another race that we learnt a lot and we improved from the last race. We want to be higher up but to score another six points is good.”
Turvey’s points means that NextEV TCR sit sixth in the team’s championship after the first two races, on thirteen points.
