Jean-Eric Vergne has heaped praise on his DS Techeetah team after he won a second consecutive drivers’ championship title in New York.
The Frenchman had a difficult start to the weekend as he span out of the points on the last lap of the first race, but a solid seventh place finish on Sunday saw him wrap up the drivers’ title by a comfortable seventeen point margin.
Those points also saw DS Techeetah secure the teams’ championship for the first time, having been pipped at the post in the very last race of last season by Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler.
It marks an incredible debut year for the Techeetah-DS Performance partnership, which only formed before this season after DS severed ties with Envision Virgin Racing after several fruitless years.
Speaking after his championship win, Vergne said, “Today has been just incredible. The weekend didn’t start in the way we expected and today wasn’t ideal but none of that matters now because we managed to get both championship titles.
“It’s still unreal to have become the first driver to be a double world champion and I can only thank my amazing team and everyone involved behind the scenes. This is for us!”
DS Techeetah team boss Mark Preston also hailed his team for their performance, and said that their victory proved wrong any naysayers who believed that their success was simply a one-off.
“This finale weekend couldn’t have started any worse with the incidents on track yesterday, and finished any better with the double titles today,” said Preston.
“People can call winning a championship once a flash in the pan, but to have done it twice is no mean feat and solidifies our position as front runners of the championship.
“I’d like to say a huge congrats to Jean-Éric and everyone in the team and back in the factory, because motorsport is truly a team sport in the end of the day. A team needs to run like a well oiled machine and ours is running like clock work.”
Afterwards an ecstatic Xavier Mestalan Pinon, the Director at DS Performance, expressed his relief at finally claiming the top prize after four years of competing in Formula E.
He said, “It’s been four years since we started our commitment in Formula E and we always had the goal of winning. Now it’s done, we are champions!”
“It’s historic and we are so proud! To achieve this level of performance you have to be in the right place at the right time and with the right people. Tonight this is done. The whole team should be very proud! We did it!”
