Badger’s Sarah Merritt viewed the first of the London Formula E races out on track from turn 3, which was where Daniel Abt of the ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport team collided with the wall during the race after a clash with Robin Frijns. Luckily, both Daniel and Robin were unscathed after his accident, unlike their cars, and Sarah had an opportunity to catch up with Daniel after the race.
Badger’s Sarah Merritt viewed the first of the London Formula E races out on track from turn 3, which was where Daniel Abt of the ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport team collided with the wall during the race after a clash with Robin Frijns. Luckily, both Daniel and Robin were unscathed after his accident, unlike their cars, and Sarah had an opportunity to catch up with Daniel after the race.On the incident with Robin Frijns:
“Basically, I think he was really struggling and quiet slow, and he lifted, I just kept my foot in and was side by side with him, and from my point of view, he turned slightly across me, and our front wheels banged. Then my front wheel broke, and I went straight into the wall, and hit him. I heard that it is the decision of the stewards that it is a racing incident. If they say so, then okay, because it happened so fast, and I also didn’t blame Robin after, and I don’t want to as it’s hard to tell, but my feeling was that I was next to him and it shouldn’t have happened.”
On the race before retirement – and keeping Sebastien Buemi behind:
“Of course, that was my task, and I tried to make it as fair as possible. I did that, even though he was pretty unhappy, I guess, as he was giving a thumbs up when he saw me crashed out. I didn’t do anything wrong and just tried to help my teammate.”
On race pace:
To be honest, I felt like my pace was really strong. I was in the unfortunate situation of having Lucas behind me. There was a clear decision that I had to let him past, so I did that, and then afterwards I had to keep Buemi behind whilst I was still very close to Lucas, and that was a very difficult task. If I outbreak myself defending to Sebastien, I’d crash into my teammate. So it was really, really hard, and of course my race was kind of ruined by that, but in the end it was always agreed like this, so it was fine.”
On the team decision to let Lucas through:
“Yes, and that was something that we had already decided before the race, if that scenario was to come up. Nico would have done the same for Seb, it’s a normal thing to do with your teammate, so that’s how it works.”
On where he could potentially have finished without the crash:
“Well it would have been interesting, for sure, because my pace felt pretty good. There were some cars in front that were not fast or did not have the pace to be there, which was the luck of qualifying today. But everything was bunched up and I would have been behind Seb, I guess, which would have made it interesting.”
On doing it all again tomorrow:
“Today’s starting positions were not really where we are, we showed great pace in free practice, and we were close between us and the Renaults guys. I was P2 in FP2 really feeling confident, but then of course it was tough as you cannot overtake on this circuit. Hopefully tomorrow is a bit more normal and a bit cleaner, and that we can start where we deserve to start.”
On Season 3 and choosing a destination that is currently not in the calendar:
“There’s mega cities that we are going to head to, it’s a great achievement so big congrats to Formula E! I’m just a bit unhappy – the only thing I don’t like is that Long Beach is not on the calendar anymore, I really like that one…but yes, it’s a great calendar. I’d like Munich, because that would really be my home race then. Ibiza maybe? But then I would not concentrate!”
