Sam Bird and Lucas di Grassi have heavily criticised Andre Lotterer’s driving in the Paris ePrix.
The Techeetah driver pulled off a robust move on Bird and then defended aggressively from di Grassi during the race.
He then caused a collision with Bird when he ran out of useable energy at the end of the race, with the Brit crossing the line with only three wheels.
Stewards decided to give Lotterer a ten-place grid penalty for the next race in Berlin as a result for his driving on the closing lap.
Speaking about the crash to Autosport Bird said, “You can’t do a late swerve when people are obviously going to be overtaking. It’s not correct, in any form of motorsport it’s not correct.”
And di Grassi complained about Lotterer’s defensive driving, and the fact that he tried to block him even when he had run out of energy.
Di Grassi said, “He was weaving around two or three or four times each straight – that was not very good behaviour.
“Then when he ran out of energy just before corner 10, where I was going to overtake him, he also tried to block me without energy, which makes no sense and almost finished my race for the second time.”
Speaking afterwards Lotterer told Autosport, “I was coasting and then Sam came with huge speed difference, obviously.
“He went for the inside, I went for the line to try to make the corner and finish. It’s not an ideal situation, obviously, and it’s not nice to crash like that but that’s what Formula E is about.
“You can get caught by surprise and when there is so much speed difference it can quickly go wrong.”
