ROME, Italy (April 10, 2022) – Nissan e.dams leaves Rounds 4 and 5 of the 2021/22 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship with two points after struggling to find a consistent set up for much of the weekend.
Last season the team took away 12 points from the Italian double-header. However, an unfortunate mixture of challenges during qualifying sessions and incident-strewn races compromised the performance of the Nissan Formula E cars, and the squad didn’t manage to achieve the results they were hoping for after the hard work done since the last event in Mexico.
In Saturday’s race, Sébastien Buemi qualified P17 and finished P16, while Maximilian Günther qualified P16 and did not finish due to a collision.
For Sunday’s round, Buemi qualified in P15 and Günther again in P16. The Nissan e.dams drivers fought hard to move forward, with Buemi grabbing P9 in the final moments of a frantic and entertaining race. Günther managed to cross the line in P11 despite having a puncture on the first lap which forced him to pit and re-join at the back.
“This has been another weekend where we could not make the most of qualifying, and this is presenting some challenges for us this season,” said Tommaso Volpe, general manager Nissan Formula E. “Qualifying poorly compromises our races because we have to start at the back and there are more chances of being involved in accidents, which is what happened in both rounds here. However, we recovered many positions in race two. Despite starting at the back, Séb finished in the top 10 and earned some points; and even Max, who had to make a pitstop, finished almost in the points.
“So we come away with some positives, even though it has been a difficult weekend. We know we have managed to solve some of the issues we identified in previous races but we’re not seeing the results we expected on track, so this is something we will be working on. We’ll keep as focussed as ever and looking forward to the upcoming race in Monaco.”
Nissan races in this all-electric world championship to bring the excitement and fun of zero-emission electric vehicles to a global audience. As part of its goal to achieve carbon neutrality across its operations and the life cycle of its products by 2050, Nissan intends to electrify all its new vehicle offerings by the early 2030s in key markets. The Japanese automaker aims to bring its expertise in transferring knowledge and technology between the racetrack and road for better electric vehicles for customers.
Driver Quotes
Sébastien Buemi
“It has been an eventful race weekend and we come away with two points. This is not exactly what we were hoping for, but of course this is better than nothing. I am happy with those two points, and we will now work hard for the next race in Monaco to do our best. We have lots of data to look at to see where we can improve.”
Maximilian Günther
“We had some bad luck with traffic in qualifying on Saturday, as I think a top 10 starting position was achievable. In the race I had an incident with Oliver Rowland which caused damage to the front suspension and ultimately put me out of the race. For today’s qualifying, our pace was not strong enough. I started P16 again and then got a puncture straight away. I managed to get close to the points towards the end of the race, but didn’t have enough energy to fully attack
