Heartbreak for Mahindra Racing in Rome ePrix, heads to Paris round with 103 points

The ABB FIA Formula E Championship took to the streets of the magnificent city of Rome for the first time yesterday. With six rounds of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship over, this was the beginning of the European leg of the season, starting off with the CBMM Niobium Rome E-Prix.

For the first time ever, fully-electric single-seater street racing was held in the Italian capital. With all the action taking place on the specially designed Circuito Cittadino dell’EUR, the track is the second longest track in the calendar at 2.84km long. With a total of 21 turns, the start/finish line is located on Via Cristoforo Colombo, with the cars will racing around the Obelisco di Marconi, against the backdrop of the iconic Colosseo Quadrato.

Heartbreak for Mahindra Racing and Felix Rosenqvist
From Mahindra Racing's perspective, it was heartbreak because Felix Rosenqvist led the race convincingly from pole from but retired a few laps from finish, following demage to the left rear wheel.

Following a set of meticulous practice sessions, Felix Rosenqvist put in an absolutely unassailable lap to take super pole, while Nick Heidfeld put himself in 10^th position on the starting grid.

After a clean start and getaway from pole position, Felix spent a few laps holding off the rampaging Virgin of Sam Bird behind him. Settling into his rhythm Felix comfortably started to open the gap to Bird and thus consolidate his lead. With everything going according to plan, a very quick pit-stop from Felix and his team of mechanics kept him in the lead after all the pit stops were done up and down the order.

Back into his rhythm and looking comfy once again, Felix was increasing the gap to Sam Bird behind him. However, unexpectedly on lap 22, in what was an otherwise regular lap, he hit a kerb and suffered rear wheel damage and was forced to retire from the race.

Starting from 10^th position, Nick Heidfeld remained incident-free so as to be able to push hard in the second stint. While maintaining position and on a quick in-lap (lap16) he was shunted into the wall at the apex of the hairpin by another car with two more cars becoming a part of the pile up. This pushed Nick down into 17^th position. After a routine pit-stop followed by an event-free second stint, he brought his car home in 16^th position.

Commenting on a race which ideally should have had Mahindra Racing and Rosenqvist on top, Anand Mahindra, chairman, Mahindra Group, tweeted: "Heartbreak is an understatement. A champion like Felix should have been bounding on to the podium today...Ah well we will live to fight and Rise another day..."

Commenting on the race, Dilbagh Gill, Team Principal and CEO, Mahindra Racing said: "Really disappointed to lose another race from the lead. We will be working hard to improving the reliability of the M4Electro which is undoubtedly fast. We will be back in Paris for a strong race finish.”

Felix Rosenqvist said, "Another very tough one to take for everyone. I feel bad for the boys. I’m super impressed by the team because it’s been a hectic weekend and everyone delivered in every session. Something that we couldn’t predict happened; we had a breakage with no connection to any specific incident. I always have a smile on my face when I know I’ve given all I can and that the team was flawless. Crazy pace today and we led every lap until we broke down. There are still a lot of positives to take from today.”

Nick Heidfled added, "After the start into turn one, there was the usual expected chaos with such a tight corner but the car is strong and I managed to keep going. On my in lap while attempting to pass Turvey at the hairpin (who was very low on energy), there was another car that went into him, in turn sending him into me, and this effectively ended my race.”

The FIA Formula E Championship championship now goes to Paris, France for the eighth round, on April 28, 2018.

Mahindra Racing is one of 10 founding teams – and the only Indian team – to compete in the ABB FIA Formula E Championship, the world’s first all-electric racing series.

RESULTS OF THE SEVENTH ROUND (ROME EPRIX)
1 – Sam Bird, DS Virgin Racing, 58:20.656s (25)
2 – Lucas di Grassi, Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler, +0.970s (18)
3 – Andre Lotterer, Techeetah, +9.518s (15)
4 – Daniel Abt, Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler, +10.167s (13)
5 – Jean-Eric Vergne, Techeetah, +17.444s (10)
6 – Sebastien Buemi, Renault e.dams, +19.835s (8)
7 – Jerome D’Ambrosio, Dragon, +24.379s (6)
8 – Maro Engel, Venturi Formula E Team, +26.350s (4)
9 – Mitch Evans, Panasonic Jaguar Racing, +37.709s (2)
10 – Edoardo Mortara, Venturi Formula E Team, +40.739s (1)
11 – Antonio Felix da Costa, Andretti Formula E, +42.680s
12 – Oliver Turvey, NIO Formula E Team, +48.833s
13 – Luca Filippi, NIO Formula E Team, +49.331s
14 – Nico Prost, Renault e.dams, +1:13.880s
15 – Tom Blomqvist, Andretti Formula E, +1:31.832s
16 – Nick Heidfeld, Mahindra Racing, +1:44.774s
17 – Jose Maria Lopez, Dragon, +4 Laps

DNF – Felix Rosenqvist, Mahindra Racing, 22 Laps (3)
DNF – Nelson Piquet Jr, Panasonic Jaguar Racing, 18 Laps
DNF – Alex Lynn, DS Virgin Racing, 15 Laps

Driver standings
1- Jean-Eric Vergne, Techeetah – 119
2 - Sam Bird, DS Virgin Racing – 101
3 - Felix Rosenqvist, Mahindra Racing – 82
4- Sebastien Buemi, Renault e.dams – 60
5- Daniel Abt, Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler – 50

Team standings
Techeetah – 152
DS Virgin Racing – 118
Mahindra Racing – 103
Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler – 89
Panasonic Jaguar Racing – 88
Renault e.dams – 67
Venturi Formula E Team – 40
NIO Formula E Team – 33
DRAGON – 25
Andretti Formula E – 20

Data source: FIA Formula E