Buemi recovers from poor quali to take Punta del Este win

Sebastian Buemi took victory for the second time this season ahead of championship rival Lucas di Grassi. The win gives Buemi the lead in the championship by one point over the Brazilian.

Both, however, struggled in qualifying, starting 5th and 4th respectively. Buemi immediately made a pass on di Grassi at the start as the right hand side of the grid offers much more grip as it is on the racing there. He then overtook Dragon’s Loic Duval and DS Virgin’s Sam Bird to get himself up to 2nd place.

A slow pit stop from Dragon then put Buemi in the lead. di Grassi also capitalised on Dragon’s mistake to take 2nd. He was then put onto the back of Buemi when the Full Course Yellow was brought out and Buemi slowed down whilst the countdown whilst still continuing. On team radio he complained that because of this he lost 5 seconds to his rival.

Jerome D’Ambrosio completed the podium, crossing the line just a tenth of a second ahead of team mate Loic Duval. D’Ambrosio was holding his own against Buemi in the early stages, but a slow pit stop on both cars hurt their races, with Sam Bird splitting the two of them on the exit of the pit lane.

Nico Prost was 5th ahead of Antonio Felix da Costa. Jean-Eric Vergne recovered to 7th from the back of the grid, with the added power of Fan Boost helping him along the way. A dramatic final lap saw him lunge at Nelson Piquet Jr into the turns 8 and 9 hairpin, but he outbraked himself and Piquet came back underneath him. The two made contact on the apex at turn 9, before Piquet touched the wall on the entry to turn 10, losing the rear, hitting the tyre wall and eventually the concrete wall on the outside.

NEXTEV saw no refuge in Oliver Turvey, who received a drive-through penalty for being two seconds under the minimum pit stop time of 59 seconds. He finished 12th. However, NEXTEV have positives to take away from the day, as the car has seen a small improvement since the opening two rounds.

Vergne made up further ground as Daniel Abt came very close to running out of energy on the last lap, with the Frenchman managing to get ahead of the ABT car for 7th. Stephane Sarrazin and Robin Frijns rounded out the top 10.

Oliver Rowland was 13th on his Formula E debut, with team mate Bruno Senna retiring from the race after running into the tyre barrier at turn 17 and damaging his car. Sam Bird also retired with a mechanical failure which saw him stop on track whilst battling the two Dragon cars after the pit stops.

Jacques Villeneuve did not start the race as Venturi were unable to repair the damage to his suspension sustained in a crash in qualifying.

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