2018 Punta del Este ePrix
The 2018 Punta del Este ePrix was a Formula E electric car race held at the Punta del Este Street Circuit in the Uruguayan city of Punta del Este, on 17 March 2018. It was the sixth round of the 2017–18 Formula E Championship and the third Punta de Este ePrix as part of the FIA Formula E Championship. The 37-lap race was won by Techeetah driver Jean-Éric Vergne from pole position. Lucas di Grassi finished second for Audi and Virgin driver Sam Bird was third.
Vergne won the pole position after di Grassi, Alex Lynn and Oliver Turvey were penalised for exceeding track limits in qualifying and maintained the lead on the first lap. The race was temporarily neutralised between the fourth and sixth laps when officials extracted the car of Nick Heidfeld who stopped with power issues. Vergne led di Grassi at the restart and the latter remained close behind the former in the next 13 laps until the field made mandatory pit stops to change into a second car. Over the remainder of the race, Di Grassi attempted to pass Vergne but the former prevented the latter from doing so and took his second victory of the season and the third of his career.
The result increased Vergne's lead atop the Drivers' Championship to 30 points over Felix Rosenqvist and Bird maintained third place. Sébastien Buemi and Nelson Piquet Jr. did not finish due to car issues but stayed in fourth and fifth positions. Techeetah further extended their Teams' Championship lead to 27 points over Mahindra and Virgin overtook Jaguar for third with six races left in the season.
Background
The Punta del Este ePrix, discontinued after the 2015–16 Formula E season because no financial agreement was reached by the Government of Uruguay to keep it going, was announced as part of the Formula E calendar in a meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris on 7 December 2017 after São Paulo authorities requested a cancellation of their planned race due to a delay in selling land to a private owner. The Punta del Este ePrix was part of an alternative plan devised by series founder and CEO Alejandro Agag in case any race was cancelled.Punta del Este was the sixth of the twelve single-seater electric car rounds of the 2017–18 Championship and the third edition of the event. The race was held on 17 March 2018, at the 20-turn Punta del Este Street Circuit, in Uruguay's Maldonado Department. The circuit is situated on the Playa Brava Beach, meaning sand was laid on the tarmac surface and affected the levels of grip available to drivers. Also, the high ambient temperatures strained the car's batteries. Construction of the track started on 24 February, 22 days before the race; and continued for the next three weeks. 370 people were employed to work long shifts to complete the project.
Going into the race, Techeetah's Jean-Éric Vergne led the Drivers' Championship with 81 points, 12 ahead of Felix Rosenqvist of Mahindra in second. Virgin's Sam Bird was third with 61 points with e.Dams-Renault driver Sébastien Buemi a further nine points behind in fourth. Jaguar's Nelson Piquet Jr. was fifth with 45 points. Techeetah led the Teams' Championship with 99 points with the second-placed Mahindra were nine points behind. Jaguar with 94 points and Virgin on 90 points were third and fourth and e.Dams-Renault were fifth with 59 points. There were ten teams entering two participants each for a total of 20 drivers for the ePrix.
The circuit underwent three cosmetic changes after the 2015 race. All bar one of the flexible bollards that were situated around the track in the last two Punta del Este races were removed by officials from the world governing body of motorsport, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, and the "sausage" kerbing at the entry of the four chicanes was dismantled. However, additional TecPro barriers were erected to improve safety around the track. These changes prompted officials to establish a specific area for drivers to stop in should they miss the turning point for the chicanes before rejoining the track during all sessions. The alterations received a mixed reception. Piquet spoke his belief that it would assist drivers attacking the track's high-speed sections. José María López agreed that the kerbing could be negotiated without any major issues and António Félix da Costa praised the "fast and dangerous" nature of the circuit that the changes created. However, the Audi pair of Lucas di Grassi and Daniel Abt called for the further adjustment of the kerbs as they feared the possibility of an accident occurring.
Three days before the race, several drivers, Formula E Teams Association representative and Andretti team principal Roger Griffiths and FIA officials discussed in a meeting procedures of improving the safety of car switches during the mandatory pit stops. It was called after teams were issued clarifications and remainders of pit stop procedures and possibly in response to an injury sustained by a Techeetah mechanic by driver André Lotterer in the preceding Mexico City ePrix. These clarifications included keeping the steering wheel installed in the driver's first car until it stopped and the FIA wanted all teams not to fully install the safety harness until the driver entered their second vehicle. Additionally, the FIA stressed the responsibility of ensuring the safety of pit stops and seat belt fastening remained with teams and drivers. The FIA also introduced a new regulation authorising stewards to review incidents on and away from the track after races had ended.
Practice
Two practice sessions—both on Saturday morning—were held before the late afternoon race. The first session ran for 45 minutes and the second lasted half an hour. A half hour shakedown session topped by López and di Grassi was held on the Friday afternoon prior to practice to allow teams to check the reliability of their cars and electronic systems. Conditions for the first practice session were cold and the maximum amount of available grip could not be reached because of the sand on the asphalt surface. Buemi used of power and set the session's fastest lap at 1 minute, 14.536 seconds, 0.343 seconds faster than anyone else on the circuit. His closest challenger was Mitch Evans in second with di Grassi third. The rest of the top ten were Alex Lynn, Vergne, Bird, Piquet, Oliver Turvey, Abt and Nico Prost. During the session, which saw several drivers finding their limits with the track and kerbing and causing them to venture onto the run-off areas, Evans stopped in the entry to the pit lane with a technical problem with ten minutes remaining and required outside assistance for recovery to his garage. Buemi made a driving error, removing his rear wing endplate by glancing a barrier necessitating its replacement.Di Grassi was fastest in second practice with a new unofficial track record of 1 minute, 13.672 seconds, Bird, Evans, Turvey, Prost, Vergne, Edoardo Mortara, Nick Heidfeld, Tom Blomqvist and Lynn filled positions two to ten. Blomqvist possibly broke his right-rear suspension by tapping the turn nine barrier after leaving the corner. An oversteer caused Blomqvist to lose control of the rear of his car and crash against the turn ten and eleven chicane wall after mounting the kerbs, causing the session to be stopped for five minutes. The size of Blomqvist's accident threw his drivetrain onto the track.
Qualifying
Saturday's afternoon qualifying session ran for an hour and was divided into four groups of five cars. Each group was determined by a lottery system and was permitted six minutes of on-track activity. All drivers were limited to two timed laps with one at maximum power. The fastest five overall competitors in the four groups participated in a "Super Pole" session with one driver on the track at any time going out in reverse order from fifth to first. Each of the five drivers was limited to one timed lap and the starting order was determined by the competitor's fastest times. The driver and team who recorded the fastest time were awarded three points towards their respective championships.File:Piquet Jr. 2015.jpg|left|thumb|upright|Nelson Piquet Jr. crashed in qualifying and started at the back of the grid.
The first group of five drivers was predicted to be a disadvantage as the circuit was still slippery from the sand being blown from the beaches but had no one make contact with the barriers lining the track. Di Grassi was the early pace setter with Maro Engel, Jérôme d'Ambrosio, Luca Filippi and Blomqvist following in positions two to five. Lynn was the second group's fastest driver despite losing time in the final third of the lap preventing him going quickest overall. Lynn demoted the previous fastest group driver López who made an error on his lap and took third, behind the second-placed Lotterer but ahead of Félix da Costa. Prost was the second group's slowest competitor because he bent his car's steering arm when he hit a trackside bollard, which speared him into the wall at a 45-degree angle at high speed leaving the turn 15 and 16 chicane. His team was required to repair his car for the afternoon's race. In the third group, a vast improvement in track conditions allowed most drivers to go faster than di Grassi in the first two sectors but not overall. Evans led the group with Turvey second. Both demoted Abt to third and Mortara was fourth. The session was disrupted when Heidfeld entered the turn 17 chicane too fast and understeered into a TecPro barrier. This caused Mortara to abandon his first timed lap and was granted dispensation to set a second, which he did not take up.
The fourth group had the first five in the Drivers' Championship eager to compete on the track. Vergne overtook di Grassi to go fastest overall in group qualifying with a lap of 1 minute, 13.672 seconds. Buemi lost momentum in the final third of the lap and was second. Bird was the first driver to attempt a timed lap but slower traffic, understeer, and tapping a wall at turn eight left him third. Rosenqvist was similarly slow and minor contact with the turn nine wall put him fourth. Piquet was set to qualify for super pole but he mounted the kerbing at turn ten and crashed into the barriers. At the end of group qualifying, Vergne, di Grassi, Lynn, Evans and Turvey entered super pole. Di Grassi clinched provisional pole position through a large amount of commitment into the first chicane with a lap of 1 minute, 13.948 seconds but was put under investigation for hitting the bollard at turn 16 and 17. He was joined on the grid's front row by Lynn who damaged his front wing by striking the bollard on his lap. Evans was third-fastest after glancing a wall at turn nine through pushing hard. Turvey in fourth drove methodically through the first chicane though he was almost a second slower than Vergne's fastest group qualifying lap due to him being untidy in the final third of the lap. Turvey was also placed under investigation for hitting the bollard. Vergne was the favourite to take pole position but an error at the start of his lap put him fifth but avoided hitting the bollard.