The Long Beach ePrix proved to be difficult and frustrating for Renault e.dams team, with Nico Prost ending the race in eleventh whilst Sebastien Buemi was sixteenth and lost his lead in the championship standing.
Buemi’s race was ruined when he got involved in an accident with Robin Frijns and received a drive-through penalty. “It was a really bad day for me and for the whole team,” admitted the Swiss driver.
Despite a terrible result around the Long Beach circuit, Buemi is only one point behind the championship leader Lucas di Grassi.
“I made a mistake trying to close in on Robin Frijns and I can only apologise to him, his team and of course everyone at Renault e.dams,” continued Buemi. “It’s been a difficult day but we must move on and we’ll be doing everything we can to bounce back for our home race in Paris.”
Prost also received a drive-through penalty, which saw him drop from fourth position to eleventh. The Frenchman started by saying: “Things were going really well for me running in fourth position before the drive-through.
We were looking good for the rest of the race and I think we could have even been in with a chance of a podium finish, so it was frustrating for such a small mistake to result in the penalty. Today has been another day for us to learn from as I really want to come back very strong for my home race in Paris.”
Also making comment about their horrid day, was Senior Team Manager, Alain Prost. Prost began by stating: “We started today strongly with the fastest car, and ended the day with the fastest car however we didn’t achieve a good result.
We lost ground in qualifying and maybe because of this Sebastien made a mistake in the race and the team made a mistake in Nicolas’s pit stop. Clearly we need to make improvements ahead of Paris as this weekend we lost too many potential points.”
The team will be hoping to make up lost ground at the next round of the FIA Formula E Championship at their home race in Paris, on April 23rd.
