It was another action packed Formula E race on the city streets of Argentina at the Buenos Aires ePrix on Saturday. With heat levels high, the main issue teams were worried about come race time was the batteries over heating. However, as soon as the lights went out all attention was quickly focussed on the battles throughout the grid.
e.dams’ Sebastien Buemi starting from pole led into the first corner followed by Venturi’s Nick Heidfeld after a commanding overtake on Virgin’s Jamie Alguersuari. It was relatively clean into the first corner and became a somewhat procession mid way through before a dramatic suspension failure for Mahindra’s Karun Chandhok, leaving him stranded and the safety car to come out. This is when things became confusing. Selected drivers dove into the pits with Alguersuari and Nelson Piquet Jr staying out, unaware of the situation before pitting a lap later. Piquet and Bruno Senna ended up stranded at the end of the pit lane by a red light which Sam Bird politely ignored only to receive a drive through penalty later on. After a few laps of the pack reorganising themselves into the correct positions action resumed.
Soon after the restart Buemi made contact with the wall and his front right collapsed. Lucas di Grassi charged to take the lead from Heidfeld who soon pitted to serve a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Di Grassi himself then suffered the same suspension damage Chandhok had and so the championship leader was out of the race.
In the latter stages Nico Prost managed to steer clear of a battle between Daniel Abt and Alguersuari after an over-optimistic move by the Audi Sport ABT driver sent the Spaniard into a spin. Abt was out on the spot, but Alguersuari managed to limp his car home in fourth behind a surprised Nelson Piquet who believed he was a lap down and Prost who finished second behind Amlin Aguri’s Antonio Felix da Costa who kept his nose clean to steal his and Amlin’s first victory.
Behind them were a sparring Jean-Eric Vergne and Bruno Senna who showed the ultimate determination after he survived a barrage of knocks from Vergne’s Andretti car on the final lap to finish a spectacular fifth after starting 19th due to qualifying problems with Vergne behind in sixth. Bird recovered to seventh with Salvador Duran excluded post race from his first points in the series after it appeared he had used too much energy. This promoted Heidfeld, Oriol Servia and Stephane Sarrazin to pick up the final point in tenth while Formula E debutant Marco Andretti came home in 12th place.
Formula E enters a mid season break now until March 15th for the Miami ePrix but stay tuned to Last Word On Sports for a half term report on the teams, drivers and the series itself as it nears the end of a so far spectacular inaugural series.
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