Vergne left ruing safety car intervention once again

Jean-Eric Vergne once again rued the safety car’s intervention as he came up short in the Mexico City E-Prix.

The Frenchman finished fifth at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, improving on his ninth place at the season opener in Sao Paulo, but as with Round 1, the safety car was deployed as Vergne deployed his final Attack Mode, leaving him at a disadvantage when the race resumed.

“On the whole it was a good weekend, for both me and the team,” said Vergne. “But I‘m still feeling a bit frustrated as it’s the second time in two races that the safety car has come out just when I’ve activated my Attack Mode. Without that, I really think we had the potential to finish on the podium.

“The positive side is clearly finishing in the points for the second consecutive occasion, having a competitive car, and that we’ve all worked well. We need to keep pushing to do even better next time.”

Like Vergne, DS Performance director Eugenio Franzetti was able to look past the poorly-timed safety car to see the positives, noting that an even stronger result had been on the cards.

“Both in terms of our performance and the points we collected, it was a positive weekend,” he said. “Nonetheless, it was a shame that the safety car came out just when our two drivers had activated their Attack Modes. Without that bit of bad luck, we could probably had done even better … but we need to focus on the positive.

“Our drivers were third and sixth at the end of qualifying, and ended up with fifth and sixth places in the race, scoring plenty of points for the team. We’re not far off the podium but we’ve still got lots of work to do in the coming month to prepare for the races in Jeddah.”

Vergne’s teammate Maximilian Guenther finished one spot behind in sixth, notching up his first points finish since he joined the team from Maserati MSG Racing in the off-season, and had a more positive outlook on the race, seeing it as the basis for building upon going forwards.

“Sixth place for me and two cars in the top six is a solid team result after a very positive weekend,” said the German. “We suffered a bit with tyre degradation, but we delivered a good all-round performance and scored some important points.

“I‘m happy with our speed in qualifying but also with the way that the relationship has developed between myself and the team. This was only my second race with DS Penske, but I have the feeling that things are going well and everything is getting more natural.

“I’m feeling better and better in the car and the goal is now to continue on this trajectory to move further up the order.”