Missed double points opportunity for NEXTEV

NEXTEV looked to be making progress with what has been a poor handling car so far this season. Punta del Este seemed to show signs of improvement with both cars fighting for points, but neither car achieved its potential during the race.

Oliver Turvey was running in 8th place when he received a drive through penalty for being two seconds under the minimum pit stop time of 57 seconds. This dropped him outside of the points to 12th.

“It was a disappointing race after a strong qualifying session”, Turvey said, “To start inside the top ten was a good achievement and the best result of the season so far. At the start we seemed to lose a bit of ground to the guys ahead and dropped a position.

“After this I was able to keep on the tail of the guys in front until we pitted on lap 16. The driver change was one of the quickest we have done all season but unfortunately we left the pits a few tenths of a second too soon so I was given a penalty. It was disappointing to get the penalty as without it we would probably have got a points finish.”

Nelson Piquet Jr once again went longer in his first stint, using his strong ability to drive efficiently to make the best of the NEXTEV package. He was later battling with Jean-Eric Vergne for 8th when, on the penultimate lap, Piquet touched the wall on the way into turn 10, lost the rear and collided with the concrete barriers.

“When Vergne made a move on me, he went a bit wide so I was able to pass him back. We touched wheels and on the next quick left-hander I lost control of the car. I’m not 100% sure what caused it, something may have broken when we touched wheels, but the car just snapped and I made contact with the wall”, he said.

“It’s a shame that it happened right at the end of the race. I think we would have finished top ten, which would have been a good result for us today. Tomorrow we have a full day testing and we will keep pushing for improvements. We saw in the race what we’re still lacking but also where we have improved. The whole team wants to keep moving forwards, so everyone is working very hard.”

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