Piquet scores despite NEXTEV's struggles

NEXTEV’s start to their Season Two campaign has not been an easy one by anyone’s standards, let alone the standards of the team that won the Driver’s Championship in Season One. The car is visibly challenging to drive, but Nelson Piquet Jr still managed to score four points in 8th from 16th on the grid with an alternative energy saving strategy.

“We did a bit of a different strategy and went longer with the first car,” he said after the race, “We got a bit lucky as a lot of cars broke down and there were a lot of problems ahead of us. I think that's sort of going to be the plan for the whole year. Oliver did it in Beijing and got some points and I did it here. That’s our reality, to try to score points where we can. It’s tough coming off the back of a world championship but we’ll keep going and doing the best possible.”

Oliver Turvey, on the other hand, looked to be the more comfortable of the two drivers in practice. But an issue with his throttle pedal caused him to crash at turn 5.

“I had a sticking throttle from the start that meant that when I lifted off the throttle the motor was still driving the car, so it was impossible to drive really”, he said, “Then the car switched off in the hairpin on the first two laps so I was trying to manage and get round the laps to swap cars as soon as possible. But then I came into turn 5, which is a tight corner, and it just drove me straight forwards into the wall unfortunately.

Team Principal Steven Lu said: “We know we have a lot to do but luckily we have scored points in the first two races despite a very difficult start to the season. We will keep working hard to find a solution to the powertrain issues we’ve been having and hopefully we’ll make more progress for the next race.”

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