Long Beach, California was the location for the sixth round of the FIA Formula-E championship, and marked the start of the second half of the inaugural season.
It is forty years since the first race took place on the streets of Long Beach. For the 6th round of the FIA Formula E Championship, the drivers would be negotiating a shortened version of the circuit, fighting it out over 39 laps of a circuit measuring 2.1km in length. It also boasts one of the tightest hairpin bends of any track, but in other places is wide and fast, providing drivers with plenty of overtaking opportunity. It is a track that attracts a lot of motor-racing sport fans.
Thus far we had witnessed five different winners from five different races. How many times can that be said for Formula 1?
‘Unpredictable’ is the best way of summing up the Formula-E format. Brilliant.
In qualifying, Sébastien Buemi got pole position ahead of Daniel Abt and Nico Prost. But, as things turned out, with 50-minutes to go before the race it was announced that Buemi had exceeded his power usage allowance and would therefore be relegated back to 10th place. This meant that Abt moved up to P1 with Prost in P2 and Pique Jr taking P3.
So as we were about to enter the 5th Round Championship race in Miami, the driver and team standings were:
Driver Standings (After Rd 5)
1.Nicolas Prost – 67
2.Lucas di Grassi – 60
3.Sam Bird – 52
4.Nelson Piquet Jr – 49
5.Sebastien Buemi – 43
6.Antonio Felix da Costa – 37
7.Jerome D’Ambrosio – 34
8.Jaime Alguersuari – 26
9.Daniel Abt – 19
10.Franck Montagny – 18
Team Standings (After Rd 5)
1.e.dams-Renault – 110
2.Audi Sport ABT – 79
3.Virgin Racing – 78
4.Andretti Autosport – 62
5.Dragon Racing – 56
6.China Racing – 49
7.Amlin Aguri – 40
8.Mahindra Racing – 36
9.Trulli – 12
10.Venturi – 8
Before the race commenced, it was announced that Nelson Piquet Jr, Jean-Eric Vergne and Sam Bird were the lucky recipients of the Fan Boost vote.
Long Beach is just 20 miles from Los Angeles, the undisputed home of electric cars with the city having the highest proportion of electric road cars of any other in the world.
As the lights went green, it was a bad start from Prost whilst conversely it was a great start from Nelson Piquet Jr as he looked to the inside line and went for the lead of the race into turn one. He led a ramshackle pack behind him as cars dived everywhere, wherever there was a gap. It was certainly messy on the T1 chicane.
Sam Bird was in trouble from the start and was out of the race almost from the moment it had started after he heavily kissed the wall. Piquet Jr was leading and Abt was in P2, Prost in P3, Vergne in P4 and di Grassi in P5 as the racing proper started. This race meant so much to Piquet Jr since 35-years had passed since his dad had won here in Formula 1 and he was desperate to repeat that feat.
On lap 4, Scott Speed overcooked things and unprompted, decided to try and embed his car into the wall. It was a big hit which immediately brought out the yellow flags quickly followed by the deployment of the safety car. Clearly, his “Bruce Lee Zone” hadn’t worked for him.
So with the Safety Car on track, the standings were Piquet Jr, Abt, Prost, Vergne, di Grassi and Buemi holding the top-six positions. Di Grassi was the man with the most useable energy, with 81% of his battery remaining whereas everyone else in the top six ranged from 78 to 80%.
As the race restarted in lap 7, Piquet went into a power-slide coming out of the hair pin but managed to hold on as Vergne deployed his fan boost to get past Prost who gave way to give him P3 in a text-book pass. No sooner had that happened than Lucas di Grassi also challenged Prost – pushing him down into P5. That was two places down for Prost in as many corners.
Da Costa, in P7 decided that he had seen enough action up front and chose to challenge Buemi for P6. But Buemi wasn’t going to give up quite as easy as Prost did and held position, narrowly avoiding the wall as he defended.
Just behind, as they reached the hairpin, a yellow flag was deployed as Charles Pic and Bruno Senna came together, breaking Pic’s suspension. With his car very obviously in a precarious position, the safety car was deployed for the second time after just two full laps had been completed.
There was no doubt that this was an interesting race already, with two safety cars in 11 laps.
Piquet Jr got a better restart without sliding his car as the race restarted and the start of Lap 12 began.
Everything settled down nicely following the re-start but down into T5 on lap 21 Jérome d’Ambrosio decided it was time to spice things up a bit and challenge Nico Prost. But Prost wasn’t going to take this lying down and at the T7 hairpin, he braked late in typical Touring Car fashion and ran up the back of d’Ambrosio, pushing him wide.
Daniel Abt surprised us all by pitting from P2 way before he needed to – perhaps thinking that a clear track before everyone else has to pit was the best strategy. We would need to find out whether this was to pay off.
It was as though Abt had opened a sluice gate because just a lap later, almost everyone else decided to follow Abt’s lead and swap their cars.
Jean-Eric Vergne leap-frogged up to second position after Piquet Jr in P1 and Abt sandwiching him in P3 as everyone had pitted by lap 25. For seven laps nothing really much happened, other than the announcement that Abt had been given a drive-through penalty for using too much power. This ruined his chances of third. A frustrating day for him – and obviously a question for him and the team about why this seems to have happened more than once.
Buemi was looking for some laps like he was going to challenge di Grassi for P3, but he was running out of time. In the end, it was never going to happen. Piquet Jr took the chequered flag.
A great performance for Nelson Piquet Jr – 35 years after his dad – and more importantly, the sixth winner in six races. A well-deserved win for Piquet Jr.
Today’s win is the first in Formula E for the China Racing team. Piquet Jr – who dominated the race from start to finish, picked up 25 points, moving him up to second in the Drivers’ Championship on 74 points, just one behind fellow countryman Di Grassi, back in the lead on 75. Nicolas Prost, who led the championship coming into this round, brought home a mere two points that come with the fastest race lap. In the teams classification, it is still e.dams in the lead on 124 points, while Audi Sport Abt are second on 97 and Virgin Racing third with 82.
The next round of the Formula E series takes place on 9 May in the famous motor sport location of Monaco. This will use elements of the Formula 1 track. And these are the driver and team standings at the end of Round six and the start of Round seven.
Driver Standings (after Rd 6)
1: Lucas di Grassi 75pts
2: Nelson Piquet Jr. 74
3: Nicolas Prost 69
4: Sébastien Buemi 55
5: Sam Bird 52
6: Antonio Felix da Costa 43
7: Jerome D’Ambrosio 42
8: Jean-Eric Vergne 32
9: Jaime Alguersuari 30
10: Bruno Senna 28
Team Standings (after Rd 6)
1: e.dams-Renault 124pts
2: Audi Sport ABT 97
3: Virgin Racing 82
4: Andretti 80
5: China Racing 74
6: Dragon Racing 66
7: Amlin Aguri 46
8: Mahindra Racing 46
9: Trulli 12
10: Venturi 9
We will see you in Monaco…
Reported By
Andrew Merritt-Morling
Chief Editor and Electric Motorsport Editor
Associate Member of the Guild of Motoring Writers
https://www.ecocars4sale.com/news/148-fia-formula-e-championship-race-report-round-six-long-beach-california-4-april-2015
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