A costly mistake !

The Moscow e-Prix started on a high, as we were the fastest of the two free practice sessions.

During the qualifying session, I signed a very good first lap, 3 tenths quicker than Nelsinho Piquet. But during the second lap, I was blocked by Jaime Alguersuari, my former team-mate at Toro Rosso. I started from the fourth position.

Then the start went well. We handled the battery very well, as I could make one more lap than Vergne and di Grassi, and two more laps than Piquet. I would therefore have been in great position to attack at the end of the race, if we hadn’t make… a big mistake!

The organizers had twisted the regulations to cut down the minimal time to change car, from 68 to 59 seconds. For a reason yet to find out, we did not notice that at eDams. Thus, the team kept me in the garage an extra 9 seconds! Those 9 seconds were lost, but on top of that, the marshals penalized me for having hampered Nick Heidfeld – which I would never have, should I have stopped only 58 seconds! To make a long story short, that was a disaster. From third, I was ninth. In the championship, there are two rounds to go and I am 23 points behind Piquet…

That’s very frustrating, of course. But I want to look forward. What I will remember from Moscow is that our car was really fast there, we probably were the fastest during the race. We handled the battery very well, and all this makes me quite optimistic for the last two rounds, in London… stay tuned!