Sébastien Buemi has been disqualified from the first round of the Montreal ePrix, his Renault edams car having fallen foul of the minimum weight rules in post-race checks.
The reigning champion lost the 12 points he earned for finishing fourth in yesterday’s race, his car coming 3kg under the minimum weight of 880kg.
Buemi’s team were forced to rebuild the car after an accident in free practice, and the stewards which handed out the punishment indicated this contributed towards the error with the car’s weight. They had noted that Buemi’s rebuilt car “used a new monocoque, battery pack and gearbox as well as many other new parts.”
The edams team had been in a rush to rebuild Buemi’s car, not helped by the tight timetable of a typical Formula E raceday. The stewards had also noted “that there was insufficient time to weigh the car after the rebuild and before the race, even though the weighing platform schedule had been increased by 30 minutes by the Technical Delegate. The team reportedly added 4kg additional ballast to compensate for any weight variation in the rebuilt car.”
This margin of safety was not enough, the car being excluded outright from the first race of the weekend and allowing Lucas di Grassi to open up an 18 point lead in the championship with only one race left.
