Lucas di Grassi has admitted that he faces an ‘extremely difficult’ task if he is to retain his Formula E driver’s title.
The reigning champion once again failed to score in Marrakesh after he was forced to retire from fourth place with a technical issue.
It was the latest in a string of mechanical failures experienced by his Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler team, and means that he currently sits in nineteenth place in the standings, fifty-four points off leader Felix Rosenqvist.
Speaking to Autosport di Grassi said, “What makes it really frustrating is because championships suddenly become very, very difficult.
“To be honest it will be extremely difficult and a really, really big challenge to be able to fight back for the championship win.
“It’s not impossible, it’s never impossible especially with Abt, but we need to sort out these problems, we need to start really scoring points, we need to start having consistent results.”
Di Grassi admitted that the team do not yet know what caused the problem in Marrakesh, but said that it was ‘weird’ given the reliability the car had shown in pre-season testing.
“I started having some cuts on power the lap before, and then at one point the car just stopped.
“We don’t know if it’s the same as Hong Kong, we don’t know if it’s the same as quali, but it has been a very tough beginning of the season.
“We’ve done more miles in testing than everybody else, without any problems. So, it’s very weird that suddenly three out of three races we have reliability problems.
“We know that the car is fast and it’s even more frustrating because the car is fast but not reliable. We have to work hard to make sure this doesn’t happen anymore.”
However despite his lead at the top of the championship, Rosenqvist refused to rule di Grassi out of the running, insisting that a couple of bad results could see things turn around.
Rosenqvist told Autosport, “As you saw last year he seems to be able to perform miracles when it’s needed so I wouldn’t rule anyone out.
“It just takes us to score a double zero in a weekend and him to win two races and he’s back in the game.”
