POINTS FINISH FOR MAHINDRA RACING DESPITE STRUGGLES ON TRACK

1O JUNE 2018, ZURICH – History was in the making today, as the ABB FIA Formula E Championship came to Zurich for the tenth round of the series. After a sixty year plus hiatus, Switzerland opened it’s doors once again to closed-circuit motor racing.

Nick and Felix were both charged up and ready to go racing in Zurich. With the race practically taking place in Nick’s backyard (he lives 20 minutes away from the track), he was comfortable right away in the practice sessions. Felix, no stranger to adapting to a new street circuit and most eager to get into the fray, set the fastest lap of the practice sessions. Unfortunately, a few mistakes in qualifying and a very tight and competitive grid led to starting positions of tenth for Felix and twelfth for Nick respectively.

The start was clean with both drivers keeping themselves out of trouble and Felix making up a position right away. As he began his trademark charge up the field, on lap 17 he went into the wall at turn one during a racing incident, while defending from the hard charging Techeetah of Jean Eric Vergne. This caused Felix to come in early and make his routine pitstop. Unable to push after the early stop, Felix was still able to make up a few positions and bring the car home in fifteenth position.

Keeping himself out of any incidents, Nick maintained his upward movement through the field with a very strong drive. The usual routine pitstops up and down the field (where the Mahindra cars were second and third fastest) saw five cars get penalised for various infringements, from speeding under flags to unsafe releases. This compromised several strategies up and down the order, letting our wily veteran take advantage of the chaos and bring his car across the line in sixth position.

RACE RESULTS
HEIDFELD:- Q13 P6
ROSENQVIST:- Q10 P15

“Sixth position at my home race is not a bad result, but I would have loved to get a podium here. It was an exciting race, especially the start which was a bit crazy. I managed to keep the car in one piece. I struggled a bit with the first car but things got better as we went along. We profited from the penalties and scored some good points. It’s been the nicest event so far, because the location is just beautiful. There were people in every place possible. I’m thankful that Switzerland and Zurich took this decision, and I hope the people enjoyed the race.”

NICK HEIDFELD

“I think it was a good weekend to start with. The car was very good and felt very balanced and we’ve made a great step forward. As we saw in practice, we got the quickest lap. Being in group one was the achilles heel today. Decent starting position but then the incident with JEV — I didn’t feel like he accepted me letting him past and suddenly I had to take evasive action and he got lucky I guess. That’s about it really.”

FELIX ROSENQVIST

“While one cannot find fault with Zurich, and it is an amazing location, I go away with slightly bittersweet memories from what I consider to be my second home. We could have had a strong points finish today, but we’re looking forward to coming back here next year.”

Dilbagh Gill

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