Jerome d’Ambrosio says he was delighted with the successful start to his career at Mahindra Racing after he grabbed a podium at the Ad Diriyah ePrix.
The Belgian showed solid pace throughout the race, and overtook Sebastien Buemi and Jose Maria Lopez on his way to second.
However the late safety car period eliminated the gap he had over Jean-Eric Vergne, and the Techeetah driver was able to use his last power boost to get by d’Ambrosio in the closing laps.
D’Ambrosio held on to third however, and speaking afterwards said that the result was a relief after two difficult years at his previous team Dragon Racing.
The Belgian switched to Mahindra for this season after four years at Dragon, of which the second two proved to be difficult as the Chinese team slumped to eighth and ninth in the championship.
But after his third place finish d’Ambrosio said he was looking to challenge for the driver’s title.
“It’s an amazing way to start season five and I think there are good days ahead of us if we keep working the way we do,” he said.
“I played it safe at the beginning to try to save some energy but stay close enough to fight for position.
“I’ve had a difficult couple of seasons so it’s great to start this new relationship with the team in this way. Going forward, we have to start fighting for the championship.”
His team-mate Felix Rosenqvist had a less happy time in his last race for the team.
The Swedish driver turned down a new contract at Mahindra to move to IndyCar for next season, but agreed to do one final race before Pascal Wehrlein takes his place.
But it ended badly after an issue in qualifying saw him crash into the barriers, before the problem repeated itself in the race and he was forced to retire.
Rosenqvist said afterwards that he was disappointed not to go out on a high.
He commnted, “I’m sad I couldn’t score any points for the team and it’s a shame as I think we could have had a really good result today but it was fun to be back and I’m really happy for Jérôme and for Mahindra on the podium today.”
