Race report
Formula E Beijing ePrix
Michela Cerruti enjoys Formula E Beijing debut despite tough luck
Michela and Team Trulli will now have more than one month to regroup and research before the next round of Formula E in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
Edited: Sep 15, 2014, 9:59 PM
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The opening round of the FIA Formula E championship ended up with a 14th place for Michela Cerruti in Beijing. The brand-new series for electric open-wheelers was off to an historic maiden run in China, as teams and drivers lined-up on a 3.4-kilometer street circuit running around the world-famous Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium.
Lining-up with Team Trulli, Michela experienced a certain lack of speed on her racecar, mainly due to the short time available for her and the team to get ready with such a new and complicated vehicle and power unit dynamics. In addition to that, a light touch with the barriers brought the 27-year-old female racer from Milan to deal with a broken gearbox, adding even more difficulties.
It's been a very difficult race, started with a slight contact with the barriers that caused the gearbox to break and forced me with only one car for most of the day,
Michela Cerruti
During the race, Michela delivered a consistent performance although, due to her display failing right before the pit-stop, she was sent back on-track too early than allowed by the rules and that cost her a drive-through penalty. It was a pity because, while probably not fast enough in terms of speed, Michela's Spark-Renault consumed a lot less energy than most of the rivals, and since many of them were slowing down abruptly in the end, a top-10 finish would have definitely been in frame.
Michela and Team Trulli will now have more than one month to regroup and research before the next round of Formula E in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Now it's time for a more traditional run with a ROAL-prepared BMW Z4 in next weekend's Blancpain Endurance Series round at the Nürburgring.
Michela Cerruti: "It's been a very difficult race, started with a slight contact with the barriers that caused the gearbox to break and forced me with only one car for most of the day, thus having half of the running available. In addition to that, we hadn't enough speed, mainly because how our Power Unit was prepared. During the race, that situation continued and I was even assessed a drive-through. When I made it back to the pits for the car change, the display showing the mandatory time for the stop shut off, and as we counted manually, I ended up exiting three seconds too early. It's been a pity also for Jarno, who crashed in practice and broke the gearbox before stalling at the start.
"In the end, there were so many broken gearboxes that there weren't enough spares for everybody. But it was an absolute first-time for the championship. It can happen. On the positive side, we know that without the penalty we could have been on-course for a good finish. Our engine's mapping, although not enough aggressive, enabled us to get to the end with lots of energy remaining while many of the others had to slow down. We're going to work in this direction for the next round, where I hope we'll put together all the positives seen in Beijing".
Michela Cerruti
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