While Jaguar TCS Racing has been racking up wins and podiums all year, leading to it being the only team with two drivers still in championship contention going into Sunday’s Formula E season finale, customer outfit Envision Racing has had a less fruitful campaign.
Sebastien Buemi returned to the podium for the first time since the season opener in the first part of the London E-Prix, highlighting the team’s potential to fight at the front – something he was keen to stress.
“I know I can do it. [I’ve] obviously not been as consistent as the other Jag guys,” he said. “I can blame it on me for quite a bit, but we learn, we try to do better.”
Saturday’s podium was Buemi’s third points finish in the last five races, and the first time he’s had back-to-back top 10s all season, which he says highlights the progress the team has made in the latter stages – progress that has been small, but in the ultra-competitive world of Formula E, has proved to have big results.
“I believe that in Shanghai we showed that we already had a bit more pace, especially in the race, and in Portland, we were good,” he said. “Today in qualifying, we were good.
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“We found our way a bit. Again, we’ve realized what we didn’t do so well, and you need to keep in mind that 0.2s here makes you look like a hero or really bad.
“Sometimes you just tune the car in a way that you just gain those 0.2s, and then all of a sudden you’re there.”
Buemi was an early leader of Saturday’s race, but being at the head of the pack proved to be a disadvantage as the race played out, with race-winner Pascal Wehrlein managing his energy allocation better to lead – and gap second placed finisher Mitch Evans – later on.
“We thought we could lead the race and win it from leading, but obviously we were a bit wrong,” he admitted. “[I was] leading the race for way too many laps; I couldn’t get the [energy] target up.
“It’s extremely difficult to under-consume when you lead … Leading the race is always a bit nicer, but obviously I had a big deficit at some point, then I couldn’t do anything, so I couldn’t get that target up. If I had to redo the race, I wouldn’t lead that many laps.”