For the first time in the season went through to the battle stage on the qualifying of the seventh round
The Tempelhoff Airport, in Germany, hosted this weekend between May 14 and 15 the activities of the seventh and eighth rounds of the World Championship of Formula E. The 22 drivers who form the grid of the main category of electrical cars of the planet reunited for the event that marked exactly the half of the competition.
Driving car #7 of the North American team Dragon Penske, the Brazilian Sergio Sette Camara achieved, with his engineers and mechanics a good evolution of his model Penske EV-5. On the Qualifying for the race of the seventh round, he scored his best starting grid, getting the 7th place. On the race, broadcasted to Brazil on SporTVand TV Cultura, the outcome was very different. Featuring the same overuse of battery throughout the races, Sergio was obligated to spare a lot of energy of his car, as well as it was on the previous rounds. Thus, following the instructions of his engineering team, he set the pace in such a way that it was possible to complete the race. Having no way to defend himself from attacks, he eventually became an extremely easy target and could do nothing to prevent the loss of positions until he received the chequered flag on the17th position.
On Sunday, which had as its main change the direction of the track to clockwise, the day seemed promising. In the second free practice, Sette was the 11th fastest and followed confident to the Qualifying. At that moment, however, he could not find the same stability for the car and, even with a good pace, he got 17th place for the start.“The times here in Formula E are always very close and I was only 150 thousandths of seconds away from following, again, to the battles stage in qualifying”, commented the 23-year-old driver.
For the race, already aware of the energy deficiency of the Dragon Penske car, driver and engineers chose to follow a strategy relying on the entrance of the Safety Car where, since the beginning of the race, they would use 100% of the power of the car. At first, it really worked. Sergio made an excellent start when he won two positions. In the following laps, after using Attack Mode, he climbed the pack and reached the 12th place. In the second half of the race, however, as the entrance of the Safety Car ended up not happening, the driver again had to save a lot of energy to finish the race and, with this, he completed the 40 laps of the round in 19th place.
“We did a lot of analysis of the races history here in Tempelhoff and there was always, at least once, a Safety’s entry situation. We had no choice but to take a chance and see how far we could go with 100% power. I can say that, on one hand we had no way to follow to the end of this strategy, on the other hand it was very good because I had a lot of fun and we were able to gather interesting data for the rest of the season as well. The next round, at the beginning of next month, will be a new track for everyone and, therefore, I believe that we will have better chances to seek the first points of the year”, concluded Serginho.
The ninth round of the Formula E World Championship will take place on Saturday, June 4, at the Jakarta street circuit in Indonesia.
Pictures: Disclosure