Competition was held earlier this Friday afternoon in Saudi Arabia
The street circuit of the city of Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, received on Friday the second stage of the Formula E World Championship. Racing for the Chinese team NIO333 Racing, the Brazilian driver Sérgio Sette Câmara concluded the race in 15th place after suffering a punishment that caused the loss of three positions in the starting grid.
The official track activities of this weekend started last night. In the desert of the Middle East the drivers accelerated the fast GEN3 cars of the series during the first free practice. Sette Câmara marked the 13th time of the session. Although the result looked bad the driver was not disappointed. “We’re at a good pace. I was caught up in my two fastest laps of the session and certainly could have ended the session in the Top3,” he explained.
This Friday, the track was opened again for the second practice session. After the 30 minutes established for the activity Sergio was with the 7th time, having his best mark at 1m10s758. Two hours later, the cars returned to the track for the qualifying session. At the time of the starting grid decision for the race the drivers take their machines to the limit. With the strategy of making two entries on the track to record his times the Brazilian, in his lap of deceleration to return to the pits, ended up hindering a competitor who came in a fast lap. Thus the organization ended up punishing him with the loss of his best quali lap. Thus, with the valid time of 1m10s598 Sette secured only in the seventh row of the grid, in 14th place.
In a beautiful show of lights and fireworks the race was started at 8 pm local time (2 o’clock from Brasilia). In a conservative start Sérgio managed to dodge an accident in the first corner and went to his recovery race. At the end of the first lap he already occupied the 12th place and, in this position, followed until the 10th lap, when he activated for the first time the attack mode. After two minutes of the first activation the Brazilian returned to the activation area and, subsequently, activated the second time of two minutes of attack mode. At this point he was very fast and established even the best lap of the race upuntil that moment. Sérgio continued disputing the positions of the intermediate pack until the 20th lap. In the second part of the race, however, with a slightly higher energy consumption than the other teams, the two cars of the NIO333 team lost some positions. At the end of the 39 laps Sette Câmara received the flag in 15th place.
“Unfortunately, the mirrors in these new GEN3 cars are very bad and we can hardly see who is behind. Unfortunately, I accidentally fumbled my opponent. On the other hand, the staff could have informed me that a car was coming around quickly and ended up not doing that. Anyway, I was punished. During the race we made a strategy to really seek a stronger pace in the first part and, as the chance of Safety-car was great, try to save battery in the second half of the race. It turned out that the race was all foot down and, with that, we had to save battery in the end. I will analyze the data with the team staff and seek the best possible solution for tomorrow’s race” concluded the 24-year-old.
This Saturday (28), by the time of Brasilia, activities begin at 7:30 a.m. with free practice. Qualifying will be held at 9:40 a.m. and the e-Prix is scheduled to start at 2 pm. Both the quali and the race will be broadcasted live by BAND.