An electrical issue with his second car ruined what could have been decent points for Nelson Piquet Jr. at the inaugural Marrakesh ePrix.
The Brazilian driver made it into Super Pole for the second round in a row but wasn’t able to pull out a miraculous lap to give him pole once again as he found himself fourth slowest, with only Jean-Eric Vergne behind him due to the Frenchman not being able to set a time in Super Pole.
That fourth place did however become third post-qualifying after Sebastien Buemi was given a five-place grid penalty for an underweight fire extinguisher.
Piquet tried to keep Jean-Eric Vergne and a hard charging Sebastien Buemi behind him in his first stint, but both eventually passed him as the Brazilian stuck to his strategy instead of fighting to the limit at such an early stage of the race. This left him in fifth place heading into the pits before his race fell apart.
An electrical problem meant Piquet was stranded in the pits for double the minimum pit stop time, before getting back out onto the track in eighteenth place with his race all-but over.
The Brazilian was able to make up places towards the end of the race as others around him suffered technical issues, crossing the line in 16th place, meaning it’s now two pointless races from the opening two rounds of the season for the season one champion.
“It’s been a difficult day,” said Piquet. “We were having an OK race but I knew I couldn’t fight too much against Sebastien [Buemi] and Jean-Eric (Vergne), so I kept to my strategy. When I came in for the car change we had an electrical issue which lost us a lot of time and at that point it was game over. It’s very frustrating so now we have to investigate what happened so it doesn’t repeat. There’s a big break now until the Buenos Aires race in February so we will look to come back strong.”
