Oliver Turvey struggled with energy management in his first stint where he had to defend a well-earned third position from Nico Prost, Lucas Di Grassi, and teammate Nelson Piquet. Though the Brit defended well, he lost the position when he was forced to pit a lap early and dropped back down to sixth after everybody else had pitted.
The problems only continued for Turvey in the second stint. Not only would he have to make his battery last a lap longer than everybody else, he was battling against thermal issues in the high humidity, causing him to fall even further down the order.
“I made a good start and felt good in the first part of the stint,” said Turvey. “I was quicker than Di Grassi, able to overtake him, and was pleased to move up to P3. When we made the pit stop it felt smooth, but when I came out I had lost three positions so we need to understand what happened there.”
Battery management also caused problems for Piquet. Though the Brazilian managed to extend his battery life to be able to pit on the same lap as everybody else, that meant stepping away from the battle with Prost, to whom he had lost a place early in the race.
“Our goal this weekend was to have a clean race,” he said. “We were able to have a bit of a battle here and there but in these kings of races you have to judge what is worth fighting and what we need to do to manage the energy, so I worked to manage the race the best I could.
“In general, it was a satisfactory race and we can take positives in that we are not far off the leaders, which is good. We’ve worked hard the last few months and it shows we are on the right track and making progress.”
“In general, it was a satisfactory race and we can take positives in that we are not far off the leaders, which is good. We’ve worked hard the last few months and it shows we are on the right track and making progress.”
NextEV has come a long way from where it was this time last year. The team managed to get both cars into the super pole shoot out and Turvey believes they could have been in the fight for pole position, had the conditions on track been better. NextEV now aims to continue the progress it’s already made, though there’s no mention of hopes to take the team’s first podium since season one.
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