Speed penalised after Monaco ePrix

Scott Speed has lost his hard won 8th place at the Monaco ePrix after being handed a penalty for exceeding his power usage.

The American has been shuffled down the official result to 12th place after being slapped with the 33-second time penalty. The decision means that Charles Pic, Antonio Felix Da Costa and Nick Heidfeld move up to fill out the final three points scoring positions.

If we have a smooth weekend we can fight for the win, I have no doubt about that.

Scott Speed

Speaking to Motorsport.com just before the judgement was made by the stewards, Speed described his crazy race, which was punctuated by being an innocent victim of the first corner fracas that also affected many of his rivals’ races too.

Early damage

“My front wing got broken at the start but we could stay out of the pits, which was obviously crucial,” said Speed. “The big problem was that we didn’t realise that we had gone green and I wasn’t told because the team were so busy communicating with me to get details on the wing and if I needed to pit or not. That cost us maybe twenty seconds.”

Remarkably, despite the wing partly falling apart in the early stages, Speed carried on lapping quickly and fighting just outside the top ten. Speed even later put an impressive move on Antonio Felix Da Costa on the outside of Saint Devote.

“We had decent speed despite the wing damage and we made some really fast lap times but ultimately the failure to get a clear lap in qualifying cost us big time today.

Speed also had a battery change before the race but escaped a penalty because it was deemed not to be at the fault of the team.

“If we have a smooth weekend we can fight for the win, I have no doubt about that. But here at a place as narrow as this, traffic and getting caught up in an accident can always happen.”