Portland stage in the United States sees Brazilian Sérgio Sette with two 14th place finishes
Last weekend, between June 29 and 30, the Formula E World Championship made its penultimate stop before the season finale. At the Portland Raceway in the United States, drivers and teams faced significant challenges on a fast and highly technical track.
Experiencing a year of intense work with the ERT Racing team, Brazilian Sérgio Sette Câmara had a tough performance on American soil. As fans of the category already know, ERT team cars usually do not perform well on high-speed tracks, and this stage was no different.
In the free practice sessions on Friday and Saturday, Sette Câmara recorded the eighth and 13th fastest times, respectively. The team made some adjustments to car #3 and sent it out for qualifying with what seemed like a very good setup. In the group phase, where he drove in group “A”, Sérgio maintained a strong pace and finished the session in second place, which would have placed him in the duels phase.
Unfortunately, an electronic issue causing energy spikes during his laps made him lose his best times, forcing him to start from the back row of the grid.
In Saturday’s race, the 13th of the Championship, Sérgio followed a conservative strategy. In another typical pack race, where the cars spend most of the race in a single block, exchanging positions, the Brazilian driver managed to save a good percentage of energy and, in the final laps, used all the power of his car to gain positions and finish in 14th place.
Same Result, Different Stories
On Sunday, however, the story was a bit different. From free practice, Sérgio’s car did not perform well, leading him to finish 16th in practice. In qualifying, participating in Group “B”, Sette Câmara was only the eighth fastest with a time of 1m09s979, resulting in a 16th place start on the grid.
The race started at 6 PM Brasília time, and ERT’s strategy was to repeat Saturday’s format, which allowed Sérgio to have a lot of action in the final laps of the race. Unfortunately, with the natural rubbering of the track, the car’s reactions were not the same on the second day of activities. Thus, Sérgio could not improve much in the final laps, finishing the race again in 14th place.
“It was a frustrating weekend, for sure. I had a fast car in Saturday’s qualifying, so much so that on track I qualified for the duels phase. Unfortunately, due to a problem that does not provide any performance gain, I was penalized and had to start from the last row of the grid. This pack racing system is very confusing, not to mention that it becomes dangerous because some drivers suddenly lift off right in front of you. Several crashes have happened because of this. Anyway, on Sunday, the good performance I had in the previous day’s qualifying did not repeat, and as a result, I was completely out of action in the race. We need to keep our heads up and move on to London. Last year we had good performances there, and I sincerely hope we can achieve good performance to end the season with renewed spirits,” concluded the 25-year-old Brazilian.
The grand finale of the 2024 Formula E World Championship will be held on July 20 and 21 in London, England.
Pictures: Disclosure | ERT Racing
Press office of Sérgio Sette Câmara
Responsible journalist: Flávio Quick