eRacing Magazine Vol 2. Issue 1 | Page 81

Bueno Aires ePrix Qualifying

All drivers made a clean start as the lights went out. Heidfeld’s start was particularly good as he took 2nd place from Alguersuari by the second corner. Cerruti collided with Senna which forced her to pit for her second car, which could not complete the full race distance due to the battery capacity but provided the team with useful data.

Di Grassi overtook Bird on Lap 3 to take 4th place. On same lap, Heidfeld deployed his FanBoost in an attempt to get past Buemi for the lead but he didn’t manage to pull it off.

Behind him, Di Grassi gained another place and Da Costa overtook Vergne. At this point, the Top 10 runners were Buemi, Heidfeld, Di Grassi, Alguersuari, Bird, Da Costa, Vergne, Prost, Piquet Jr and Chandhok.

11th placed Daniel Abt’s attempt to pass Chandhok was unsuccessful as the young German locked up and ran wide, allowing Chandhok to retain his position. Unfortunately, the Indian driver suffered a suspension failure which brought out the Safety car. By then, the lead cars had only about 10% of their battery capacity left so virtually the entire field made their mandatory pits stop while the Mahindra car was removed from the track.

There was a moment of confusion about whether drivers were allowed to unlap themselves or not.

On race re-start (Lap 23) Buemi shot off as the Safety Car returned to the pits, but only a lap afterwards he clipped a wall with his front right wheel handing Di Grassi lead of the race. “Oh No!”, was the Swiss driver's visceral response.

Bird who was now in 5th place, received a Drive-Through Penalty for ignoring a red light when re-joining the track. On Lap 27, Di Grassi slammed into the wall around Turn 10. What initially looked like the driver’s mistake transpired to be a suspension failure similar to Chandhok’s His misfortune catapulted in Heidfeld into the lead and Da Costa up to second place.

Further down the field, Senna whose qualifying had been compromised by Trulli’s crash and some issues with his car and had started in 19th place - was up to 15th by Lap 2 and rapidly progressed through the field aided by FanBoost.

Just as fans were beginning to cheer Heidfeld for breaking his run of bad luck and was heading for a race win, race-control notified Heidfeld’s Venturi team of a Drive-Through penalty for speeding in the pit-lane. The German relinquished his lead to Amlin Aguri’s Da Costa who, after seeing the leaders suffer suspension failures, seemed to ease off his speed to ensure he saw the chequered flag.