This Saturday (27) the first round of the FE World Championship was concluded. The only 100% electric single-seater category in the world opened its calendar on the streets of Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, and in a double-round system the Brazilian driver Sérgio Sette Câmara showed his great potential in the competition. After starting in second place in the race on Saturday and, with 18% of the votes, winning the FanBoost, the driver ended his participation in the race in fourth place and left the Middle East in the ninth position of the Championship, with 12 points.
The schedule for this first round of the Championship started on Thursday, with the first free practice of the year. Away from the tracks since last November, when the category’s pre-season was held in Spain, Sérgio dedicated himself a lot to physical, mental and mainly simulator training.
Together with the Dragon Penske Autosport team, the young driver arrived in Riyadh, Saudi capital, last Saturday and had to go through 60 hours of isolation, in a hotel room, until he had confirmation of negative for Covid-19. After that first period, the driver was able to rejoin his team and prepare things for the next two races.
The first track activity was a quick shakedown, still on Thursday, when the driver and teams were able to check the operation of all the systems of the cars, as well as to have an exact notion of the conditions of the street layout of Diriyah. Soon after, the fast electric cars took the circuit for the first practice. In this first session, still adapting to the course on which he had never competed, he registered the 18th time. In the second free session, held on Friday, Sérgio improved his performance a lot by finishing in the sixth position.
Excited for the first qualifying session of the year, Sergio pushed his set up to the limit in search of the first positions on the grid and, within walls, ended up grazing a barrier in the first sector of the track. He still tried to continue with the lap, however, a failure in the car’s brake system made him go straight out at the end of the track and lightly hit the tyre barrier. The team worked fast and, a few hours later, the car was ready. Lined up at the end of the pack for the first race of the year, Sette Câmara was surprised by a punishment right after the start, in which his car would have reached an energy peak higher than allowed by the regulation and, therefore, had to pay a drive-thru (slow passage through the pits). With that, he was well behind the pack and, even with a good race pace, finished only in 20th place, a position ahead of Nico Müller, his teammate.
.: SATURDAY OF REDEMPTION :.
After a good night’s sleep and the certainty that, indeed, the car performed well on the Saudi route, Sérgio was confident of his classification. In a spectacular lap, still in the group stage, he took the second mark by setting the time of 1´08´533. Excited and very focused, the driver went to the Super Pole, where only the top six fight for the top positions of the grid. Once again Sérgio excelled and, with the time of 1´08s178, he again established himself in the second position, improving his first mark by almost four tenths.
The race had its start authorized at two o’clock in the afternoon (Brasília time) and Sérgio, in a conservative way, ended up giving up the second position to stay away from a possible hit with Sam Bird, who came in third. In the third position, the driver stayed for the entire first part of the race until, when using Attack Mode, a system that can be used twice in the race and offers 4 minutes of extra power for the cars, Serginho naturally lost some positions. The driver used his power in a very positive way both times in attack mode, however, he was always in the fight for the third and fourth positions.
.: FIRST PLACE ON FANBOOST :.
In the middle of the race, via Radio, the driver also learned that he had won the Internet vote on FanBoost and, with that, he could count on another extra power time in his # 7 car in which he clearly used in the defense against attacks by competitor Nick Cassidy. The race continued with great competitiveness until, with two laps to the end, a strong accident interrupted the race and, with that, the victory of Sam Bird (ING), followed by Robin Frijns (HOL) and the current champion Antônio Felix da Costa (POR). Sette Câmara took the fourth overall position with a total of 12 points for the Championship. With the result, he leaves Saudi Arabia in ninth position in the Championship.
“I’m really happy with the result we achieved in this second race here in Diriyah. Friday’s race, for sure, was disappointing from the qualifiers and onwards, but I knew our car was fine. So, it was just a matter of putting things together that the result appeared. I was really pleased that, even with the 2020 car, only with the changes in people and team procedures, we managed to show an excellent evolution. I leave here with six times more points than the team won last year and, I’m sure, we can go much further. I am very grateful to everyone who voted for me on FanBoost and, you can be sure, it helped me a lot in the race ”, commented the 22 year old.
The second round of the F-E World Championship takes place on April 10 in Rome.
Photos: @spacesuitmedia