Monaco ePrix Race Report

It was a challenging Monaco ePrix for the American Formula E team. Despite a potential six points haul from an eighth-place finish by Scott Speed and the first Visa Europe Fastest Lap Award given to Jean-Éric Vergne and the team, a post-race penalty striped Scott of four valuable Championship points and demoted him to a 12th-place result. With just two points collected from the Monagasque weekend, the Andretti Formula E Team now sits in fifth place on the leader board with 82 points.

 

The Monaco ePrix formed the seventh of 11 races for the inaugural season, and the first to take place in Europe. The track used a modified configuration of the iconic Grand Prix street circuit and at just under 2km in length, the cars used the same famous start/finish line before turning right and immediately towards the harbour to tackle a new hairpin before rejoining the more familiar track configuration.

 

“It was a difficult weekend for us. With the incident on Lap 1 really compromising JEV’s race, and when it became apparent that we weren’t going to be able to achieve the full race distance, we made a decision to go for the fastest lap, which we were successful in doing. The two points from that could become very important as the season goes on. Scott fortunately got through the incident without too much damage and was running in a strong P10 position and got up to eighth but unfortunately a post-race penalty has dropped him back out of the points. From here, we’ve got to re-group and look forward to a better weekend in Berlin.”

 

Clinched the FanBoost for the fifth consecutive race

Qualified in 13th

Following a multi-car incident on Lap 1 of the race and down to one car, a change in race strategy was rewarded with the Visa Fastest Lap Award (Lap 32) and two valuable championship points

 

“With what happened at the start of the race we were lucky to be able to come back to the pits and try to finish the race driving at a safety car pace with one car. When we saw that finishing the race was not possible we decided to push for one lap and we got the fastest lap. So it’s really good to get back home with two points and a new Formula E trophy, which is definitely better than nothing!”

 

Qualified in P15

Sustained damage during the race crash on Lap 1, but took the chequer in P8

A post-race penalty dropped Speed to P12

 

“The whole weekend was us pretty much getting unlucky. The good thing is that when we got in to the car during the race that wasn’t broken we were extremely fast, at least as fast as the leaders, so we just need to have a clean, problem free weekend.

 

“There was a big shunt at Turn 1, we lost our wing and while we were looking to see if we should pit or not because the wing was so heavily damaged, we didn’t realise that the safety car was pulling off. So when the track went green we were some 20 seconds or so behind the field, and then we had to drive the whole stint without a front wing, which obviously hurt us. But when we got in to the good car we were quite fast and able to make some good passes and climb up to eighth – but that’s really only only positive we can take away from here today.”

 

 

The eighth round of competition takes place in Berlin, Germany, on May 23. For information about the Andretti Formula-E team, visit the new AndrettiAutosport.com and stay up to date on Twitter via @AndrettiFE.