An eventful double header weekend in Rome

fia formula e | 18.07.2023
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Sébastien Buemi started the thirteenth round of the ABB Formula E World Championship on the highly technical Rome circuit, which is also the longest of the season. The Swiss driver and his team-mate were in Group B of this complicated qualifying session, with temperatures hovering around 40 Celsius degrees. Sébastien qualified second, which enabled him to get into the final duels, where he will secure fourth place on the grid for Saturday's race.

With the weather still as harsh as ever in the Italian capital, Sébastien Buemi faced a complicated start to the race. The Swiss driver made up one position to move up to eighth before the race was interrupted by a safety car on the third lap. Shortly after the restart, Buemi was involved in an impressive accident involving many cars. All the drivers escaped unhurt, but a total of eight cars retired in the beginning of the race, including Sébastien Buemi's Envision.

Thanks to the hard work of the mechanics throughout the night, Sébastien was able to take part in practice on Sunday morning, where he set the 2nd fastest time of the session.
Once again, he qualified for the final duels, but only started the race from eighth place. It was a turbulent race, but Buemi finished in fifth place and took home some important points, enabling Envision Racing to retain top spot in the championship, 6 points ahead of the Porsche Formula E Team.

"The track in Rome suited us well, with a good qualifying session on the first day in which I secured fourth place. At the start of the race, I unfortunately lost a few places, but I remained concentrated and took the attack mode at the right moment without losing any places. After that, the accident with Bird was hard to avoid and there wasn't much I could do. The most important thing, of course, is that nobody was hurt.
The team worked hard throughout the night to repair the car and thanks to them I was able to set the second fastest time in FP3. In qualifying, I qualified again for the duels, but I made a mistake in the first duel and ended up starting the race eighth. It was a good race, I finished fifth, I'm happy, because the energy saving was very low and therefore the possibilities of overtaking were minimal. So, it was a mixed weekend, but we still managed to score 10 points on Sunday. Now there's one more meeting in London, so we're going to do everything we can to hold on to the lead in the constructors' championship.”
Sébastien Buemi

The ABB Formula E World Championship season now heads to London on July 28 for the final two races of the 2022/2023 season.