Formula E Talk: Sam Bird Takes Victory After Buemi Crashes Out

Sam Bird became the first driver to win in every season of the FIA Formula E Championship after victory in Saturday’s Santiago e-Prix. The Brit finished 6.4 seconds ahead of rookie Pascal Wehrlein following an action-packed afternoon that saw 8 DNF’s which included early race leader and pole-sitter Sebastian Buemi and a whole host of title contenders.

Daniel Abt completed the front trio to register Audi Sport’s first podium of the season. Teammate Lucas Di Grassi had provisionally put his car on pole position by a full half-a-second but was later excluded from qualifying for a braking infringement on his in-lap.

Bird’s 8^th Formula E win see’s him leap to the top of driving standings just two points clear of Jerome d’Ambrosio who endured a difficult weekend.

The Calm Before the Storm

The Season 5 Santiago e-Prix on Saturday was the hottest Formula E event ever with temperatures peaking at 37° Celsius as the race got underway. The early exchanges in comparison were a little, mild.

Nissan E.dams driver Buemi pulled away out front to build a 1 second lead over Pascal Wehrlein. Sam Bird started 4^th but immediately went to work moving up the field and dispatched of Daniel Abt under-braking into turn 13 on lap 1.

The turn 13 hairpin would prove to be a key area for overtaking, so when Tom Dillman’s NIO ground to a halt on the run down into 13 and brought out the yellow flags on lap 1, the race was all but neutralised. The NIO driver would eventually get going again, pulling into the pits to retire.

There after for the first ten-minutes we were hard-pushed for on track action.

The Storm

Thankfully, as the clock ticked over the ten minutes mark, everything started to kick off.

Sam Bird by this point had closed right up to the tail of Wehrlein and activated his first ‘ATTACK MODE’ of the afternoon. The extra power allowed the Envision car to sweep past the Mahindra on the run down to turn 1. Being forced wide at 3, Wehrlein cleverly decided to arm his first ‘ATTACK MODE’ which helped him keep close tabs on the leaders of Buemi and Bird.

At almost the exact same time we had a shot of Jean-Eric Vergne being spun around at turn 14. Initially it looked as if the cause was a nudge from Antonio Felix Da Costa in the BMW I Andretti but the race 1 winner was not at fault. No, that responsibility was of none-other than Vergne’s Techeetah teammate Andre Lotterer. Lotterer carried too much speed into 14 and speared into the rear of Da Costa’s BMW which in turn was punched into Vergne.

If we cast our minds back 1 year to the Santiago e-Prix of season 4 you will remember that the two Techeetahs came together while battling for the lead with Lotterer crashing into the rear of Vergne.

A few minutes later Lucas Di Grassi would do the same thing to Jose Maria Lopez, lifting the rear of the Dragon and spinning him around.

We then had more turn 14 action as Oliver Rowland pushed Massa too far and put the Brazilian rookie into the wall.

Massa had been trying to capitalise on a slow Maximilian Gunther out of 13 after a failed move on Alexander Sims saw the GEOX Dragon driver squeezed wide. Massa would attempt to line up a cutback on Gunther but found the inside full of Nissan as Rowland had taken advantage of Massa’s wide line.

But, on exit Rowland still had the Venturi alongside him and gave Massa no room, pushing him into the wall. The impact would damage the steering column of Massa’s car and he was forced to retire from only his 3^rd ever e-Prix.

To round of the spree of collisions that took place within the second 10 minutes of the race there was a small coming together between Eduardo Mortara and Alexander Sims. The pair were running nose-to-tail down into the chicane that is turns 8/9/10 when a slight tap from the BMW’s nose was enough to send Mortara and his Venturi spinning around. Sims would go on to cross the line in 3^rd but then received the equivalent of a drive-through penalty which dropped him down to 7^th.

I don’t agree with the penalty as Sims was not driving erratically and was carrying the correct speed for the corner. There appeared to be a slight slowing from Mortara at the midpoint of the chicane which caused the BMW’s over speed and eventual tap.

Back-to-Back Full Course Yellows (FCY)

With 28 minutes remaining on the clock the GEOX Dragon car of Gunther ground to a halt on the start/finish straight which would require the race director to bring out the first Full Course Yellow of the afternoon.

I must feel sorry for Max Gunther as this was by far his strongest showing in the series. He was battling up and around the top 6 looking for not one moment out of place. His teammate Lopez has looked particularly strong in the opening couple of rounds and I had feared his may look like a wasted seat had the same trend continued throughout the season.

The race would then briefly return to racing speed with Sam Bird now all over the rear of Sebastian Buemi.

However, further down the field it turned into another disastrous day for Stoffel Vandoorne. The HWA car is clearly lacking race pace and despite putting himself 5^th in qualifying, Vandoorne found himself going backwards as the race wore on.

As the race resumed after the FCY for Gunther, Vandoorne was put under pressure immediately from a recovering Mortara. The Belgian looked to cover the inside into 3 but drifted wide onto the marbles which in turn carried him off into the outside wall. The front wing was knocked off and his suspension snapped bringing and end to his race.

This brought out the second Full Course Yellow.

Despite the short stint between cautionary periods, Wehrlein had managed to close the gap to the leading pair and now sat right on the tail of Sam Bird.

Another Race Leader Crashes Out

I am beginning to believe that in this new generation of Forumla E cars there is an in-built curse that only awakens when a driver is leading the race.

In Saudi Arabia Jean-Eric Vergne was given a drive-through penalty after his car exceeded the maximum power usage at any one moment. A glitch put down to lack of practice around the Addiriyah circuit.

In Marrakech the BMW’s were comfortably leading the race before a small dual broke out between the pair and Da Costa, leading at the time, locked up, hit Sims and put his car into the barriers.

And now in Santiago we had Sebastian Buemi crashing out at turn 7 after coming under immense pressure from Sam Bird.

Initially it looked as if it was a driver error from Buemi who locked up while trying to make the apex of 7, but it was later revealed that there appeared to be a glitch with the Nissan’s software that caused the error.

“The only thing I can tell you [is] it was not my fault.” Buemi told reporters after the race.

“Basically, we had lots of software issues during the day, which of course were related to the crash I had in FP1, the big crash. That was related to a small software issue.

“Unfortunately I had another issue in the race that was there from lap one and that basically made the crash happen. It didn’t help me in that phase.”

New vs Old

With Buemi now out of the race we were left with the long serving Sam Bird leading the rookie Pascal Wehrlein in the final 10 minutes.

Initially Bird pulled away from the Mahindra driver and looked set to take a comfortable first victory of the season for Envision Virgin Racing but was now out of ‘ATTACK MODE’s whereas Wehrlein had one remaining. And, with six minutes left on the clock he would run through the activation zone and begin his hunt for race victory in only his second race.

He quickly was snapping at the heels of the Envision car and looked to have a go around the outside towards turn 12. Bird was having none of it however and ensured he positioned his car in such a way that Pascal never got a serious look in the closing stages.

The battle was then quickly quelled when Wehrlein received a radio transmission from his race engineer.

“Okay so Dilbagh says he is happy with this position…” was the message that came through.

Initially it didn’t look as if Wehrlein was going to adhere to the clearly coded message of ‘back-off’ and continued his pursuit of the victory. But, a few minutes later the car suddenly developed an over-heating issue which forced Pascal to drop back. How real this heating issue was I am unsure but it certainly was a very sudden and very critical issue that the Mahindra car was dealing with.

With this Sam Bird was able to coast home to victory and become the first driver to win in every season of the FIA Formula E Championship.

Final Thoughts

Two things stand out for me after this past Saturday. Firstly, Formula E appears to have trumped all other forms of motorsport with it’s dodgy stewarding and rule-making. Lucas Di Grassi was thrown out of qualifying for not using his break pedal correctly on an in-lap. The rule, Article 27.9, was introduced for this weekend after a request from chassis manufacturer SPARK who want drivers to break at the same level as they would on a fast lap on their in-laps.

The rule itself is a strange addition but the penalty of excluding Di Grassi from qualifying was far too harsh. A grid penalty sure, breaking a rule is breaking a rule, but a total exclusion does not reflect well on the series, particularly when the infringement would have made no difference to the final qualifying result.

Di Grassi was then also handed a 34-second post-race penalty for a collision with Jose Maria Lopez.

Secondly, we have no idea what the pecking order of this championship is and that is fantastic.

After the last race in Marrakech it appeared that the BMW i Andretti team had started to flex their muscles and looked set to start dominating races. But in Santiago Sims and Da Costa could only qualify 8^th and 17^th respectively with Sims going on to cross the line 3^rd before his penalty and Da Costa retiring.

You also had the Techeetahs suddenly nowhere near the front and looking as if they were struggling for pace all weekend.

Audi deserves credit where credit is due because after testing and the first round in Saudi Arabia things were looking grim. Both the Audi Sport and Envision Virgin cars looked well off the pace and you would not have tipped them to be battling for victories in the next two rounds. That is exactly what we got though.

In Marrakech you had both Envision cars and Lucas Di Grassi all over the rear of race winner Jerome d’Ambrosio as they crossed the line. Then in Santiago Sam Bird took the race win with Abt 3^rd and Robert Frijns in 5^th.

This uncertainty is certainly making each race unmissable.

Next FIA Formula E e-Prix: Mexico City – 16^th February