Lucas di Grassi and Team ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport made a good start to the new FIA Formula E season in Beijing last weekend.
The Brazilian took second place in the opening race of the new season of the world’s first fully-electric racing series. Team-mate Daniel Abt finished down in 11th place after being handed a time penalty.
The 26 lap race was won quite comfortably by Sebastien Buemi in his Renault e.Dams car, but behing him it was an action-packed curtain raiser that went right down to the wire, with di Grassi just pipping Nick Heidfeld’s Mahindra Racing car into second place.
“It’s a fantastic feeling to start a new season with a podium,” says Lucas di Grassi. “The trophy for second place is a fine reward for our hardworking mechanics, engineers and partners, who were unable to take a break in the summer.”
Starting from fourth, di Grassi quickly moved up to third and thanks to his team’s perfect pit stop made up yet another position, which he held to the finish.
In truth Buemi dominated the entire weekend though, taking pole position and the fastest lap of the race and it was only broken rear wing on team-mate Nicolas Prost’s car that denied the team a perfect weekend.
For that reason, there is no time to rest for the Abt team. “Today we’ll celebrate, but tomorrow we have to work even harder to close the gap to the competition” warned di Grassi.
The race saw the first competitive outing for the team’s new drivetrain, which was developed in cooperation with technology partner Schaeffler, following a change in the regulations from last season.
“The spectators saw an exciting race today in which not just the drivers fought with one another, but also in which the different concepts competed for the first time. We extracted the maximum and are satisfied with second place in the opener,” says Team Boss Hans-Jürgen Abt.
Round two of the championship takes place in Malaysia on November 7th. Coverage can be found on ITV 4.
* Image courtesy of ABT Sportsline
