POINTS SCORING FINISH IN BERLIN FOR MAHINDRA RACING

19 MAY 2018, BERLIN – Today, the ABB FIA Formula E Championship moved to Berlin, Germany for round nine of the 2017/18 season. The Mahindra Racing team had a challenging day, with Nick Heidfeld finishing in tenth, collecting one championship point, and Felix Rosenqvist crossing the line in 11th, just missing out on a points scoring position. Felix maintains third place in the Drivers’ Championship and Mahindra Racing remains in fourth place in the Constructors’ battle.

The day started out strong for Nick, with the local hero topping the timesheets in free practice one, almost half a second clear of second placed Sebastien Buemi. Unfortunately, he had a challenging qualifying session. After setting his best lap in group two, he had to settle for a seventh row start from 14th when all 20 drivers had set their times. Nick made a solid start to the race, maintaining position over the opening five laps, after which he began picking his way through the field. Heading into the last lap he was sitting in 11th but, after a tussle between Piquet Jr and Lopez went awry, Heidfeld was able to move up to tenth position, collecting one championship point.

Felix qualified in group four where he put in a strong lap, but just missed out on Super Pole by qualifying in sixth, securing himself a third row start. On the first lap of the 45-lap race, Felix locked up at turn one and went wide, falling back to 15th and making a points finish a battle from thereon. He was able to climb two places by the halfway point and then gained a further two positions after a fantastic pitstop from the team. The second stint saw more mid-pack battles with Felix tussling with his Formula E compatriots but he ultimately crossed the line just out of the points in 11th. The popular driver did win one of today’s coveted FanBoost votes.

There are three races remaining in the 2017/18 ABB FIA Formula E Championship. The inaugural Zurich E-Prix is coming up next on Sunday 10 June.

NEXT EVENT / ROUND 10

ZURICH E-PRIX 10 JUNE 2018

MAHINDRA 4th 108pts
ROSENQVIST 3rd 86pts
HEIDFELD 13th 22pts

Stats:

  • 108 POINTS
  • 2 WINS
  • 3 PODIUMS
  • 1 VISA FASTEST LAP AWARDS
  • 3 JULIUS BAER POLE POSITIONS
  • 5 SUPER POLE APPEARANCES

“It was a bit of a frustrating day but on the other hand I had a lot of fun having so many battles. But you prefer to fight for a podium and not for tenth. But it’s even hard to talk about all the fights I had as there was so much going on. It makes a big difference at this circuit going either one lap shorter or longer than the others so that made for a lot of ontrack fights. I’m looking forward to Zurich, which is a home race for me, and looking for us to be back in the fight there.”

NICK HEIDFELD

“Overall it’s been a tough day. Qualifying was quite good. I put in a good lap and it was disappointing to miss out on Super Pole. In the race I tried to make a move but I locked up going into turn one. It was a gamble and it was my fault but I think we would have struggled today; we finished 45 seconds behind the leaders so that’s something we need to look at. Thanks to the fans for voting in FanBoost. Now we’ll look forward to Zurich.”

FELIX ROSENQVIST

“Tough day for us, it’s just been one of those races where things didn’t start well. We pushed hard on track and we tried something a little different with the strategy to move up the field. Both our guys pulled off some great overtakes but the end result isn’t where we want or expect to be. Our focus is now on Zurich and getting back to where Mahindra should be”

Dilbagh Gill

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