eRacing Magazine Vol 2. Issue 7 | Page 85

Buemi takes first blood in Saturday qualifying

by Bunmi Ade

Sebastien Buemi thread the needle around the serpentine confines of Battersea Park to give himself the perfect chance to overall championship rivals Lucas di Grassi and Nelson Piquet during this weekend’s London ePrix double-header.

Group 1 comprised Prost, Di Grassi, Leimer, Sarrazin, Bird.

With four minutes to go in the first 10-minute session, Di Grassi topped the timesheets though lost part of his car while being aggressive over a bump. Sarrazin got caught up in traffic which seemed to compromise his qualifying session. Leimer went in too deep at the end of the session and could only manage to qualify 5th of the 5 drivers in Group 1 with a 1min28.152 (he eventually finished in 20th place)

The five drivers in Group 2 were Duval, Turvey, Senna, Fontana and Vergne.

Vergne set the fastest first sector, but brought out the yellow flags after he locked his rear brakes. He recovered and set a decent time to be provisionally 2nd place. Formula E novice, Oliver Turvey set an outstanding lap to displace fellow Briton Sam Bird from provisional 3rd place.

Next out were Abt, Chandhok, Trulli, Yamamoto and Heidfeld in Group 3.

Abt was provisionally in 8th place with 3 minutes remaining in the session. Another novice for the weekend, Yamamoto had a bit of a lock up into final corner, pushing to the limit. Chandhok took a while to get into the groove of things as he stayed 15th with 1min10seconds till the end of the session.

Although he managed to improve to 12th in the closing seconds, he touched the wall in the final corner but didn’t impede the other drivers finishing their runs.

The final 5 drivers to qualify for the Race 10 were de Silvestro, D’Ambrosio, Buemi, Duran and Piquet Jr.

D’Ambrosio - who took a group of journalists for the track reveal and a track

walk a few weeks ago - said he didn’t want

to be in Group 1 due to leaves on the track. The Belgian got his wish and was randomly drawn to run in Group 4 when the track is probably at its cleanest and “well rubbered in”.

Piquet Jr ,in a hurry to get the session going and get some clean air ahead of him, overtook Buemi in the first few corners but the Swiss driver posted a storming lap time of 1min24.648 to take provisional pole from Di Grassi with 4minutes left in the session.

At her first competitive outing, de Silvestro posted 1min27.208 (17th place) losing some time in the middle sector. Piquet Jr, the championship leader, knew how

important pole position will be at this narrow track, locked up a few times under

pressure and secured 3rd place momentarily till D’Ambrosio clocked up 1min25.104 to take 2nd place – beating Di Grassi into 3rd by 1hundreth of a second.

Provisional Grid for Race 1 of London ePrix weekend was Buemi, D'Ambrosio Di Grassi, Piquet, Vergne, Prost, Turvey, Senna, Bird, Duran, Duval, Heidfeld, Abt, Sarrazin, Trulli, Chandok, Silvestro, Yamamoto, Fontana, Leimer.

Car 99 (Piquet Jr) was placed under investigation but no further action was taken.

London Saturday Qualifying