Nathanaël Berthon was able to score points in his ePrix debut with Team Aguri around the streets of Beijing on Saturday, whilst teammate Antonio Felix da Costa was involved in an incident that ended his race early.
Berthon, who could only manage 17th position in qualifying, avoided trouble in the early stages of the race and chose to save energy in his opening stint. This allowed the Frenchman to go a lap further than the majority of the field and this played into his hands as he came out in the Top Ten at the end of the pitstop phase.
The run to the finish line was clean and fairly uneventful for Berthon as he remained in eighth position until the flag, gaining a total on nine places throughout the opening race weekend of the season; a positive performance ahead of the second race in two weeks’ time.
“If you had offered us eighth at the beginning of the race we’d definitely have taken it.
I’m very happy for the team and very happy go home with some points after my first race. The strategy was great but we did have a lot of luck,” commented the Team Aguri driver.
“The level here is very high and you won’t often get that kind of luck in a championship like this. We have a lot of work to do if we want to repeat it at the next race – we had some issues, and the second car really didn’t feel good at all. That said, I have confidence in the team and I’m sure we can move forward from here.“
