Jean-Eric Vergne was critical of his Techeetah team after some embarrassing errors at the Marrakesh ePrix.
After setting the fastest time in group qualifying Vergne was denied the chance to go for pole after the team sent him out too late for his run.
The race was going better for the Frenchman and after the pit stops he was chasing down Felix Rosenqvist for the lead of the race.
He was then hit with a penalty for speeding in the pit lane, something Vergne blamed on a fault in the car after suffering a similar problem in the morning.
“I got a fine this morning for the same reason as in the race and I have never had this situation my whole life,” Vergne told Motorsport.com.
“I suspect that the pitlane limiter button, like this morning, just didn’t work. We will investigate.”
Without the penalty Vergne was confident that he had the car to win, as he was catching Rosenqvist and still had a comfortable gap to eventual winner Sebastien Buemi.
“It is frustrating as we had the car to win. I was in a position to win that race and I was much quicker than Felix and good on energy percentage and, at that stage, Buemi was far back and would have needed to use a lot of energy to catch me up.
“I don’t think he could have overtaken me.”
A problem with his steering wheel at the end saw Vergne lose more places as he was unsure how much usable energy he had left.
It meant he finished down in eighth, and after just two races he finds himself 46 points behind championship leader Buemi.
Although the car is quick Vergne was understandably frustrated with the team, and said they need to take another step up ahead of the next round at Buenos Aires.
“We messed up the race in Hong Kong and we didn’t score many points here today.
“I couldn’t take part in super-pole because of a team mistake. I can look at some positives as we have a quick car but that is it now.
“The team was running much, much better this weekend but it is still not good enough, obviously.
“ I think the step we made from Hong Kong to here needs to be made again for Buenos Aires and then we will be in a stronger position.”
