Rast and Sette Camara clash
Although most of the grid looked ready to tangle up with each other at any moment, only a few did clash. Two of those were the NEOM McLaren of Rene Rast and NIO 333’s Sergio Sette Camara, who got into a mess when they clashed early on in Round 7.
“What a s**tshow here,” Rast explained, as the German tried to do his best at his home race. Having broken his front wing on the side of the NIO, Rast’s engineer continued, “yeah, it’s Sette [Camara] mate, you know what he’s like. You need to get back in front.” Rast continued with his front wing trapped under the car, before pitting to retrieve it. Rast would also be slapped with a five-second time penalty for the offence.
“Ahh, man! I cannot believe it,” the Sette Camara added about the incident. “I got completely shunted and my car is bent now.”
DS PENSKE's beef with Ticktum
With the NIO 333 of Dan Ticktum launching himself from fourth to the lead in the first race of the weekend, the Brit struggled to stay up ahead. His glory was short-lived, and left some drivers unimpressed, especially the DS PENSKE of Jean-Eric Vergne.
“Ticktum struggles in energy,” Vergne is told by his engineer. The two-time Formula E champ snaps back, “and he just overtook me? What a f**king idiot. Get on the radio and say something. This is a joke.”
Things didn’t end there, as Ticktum later made contact with the reigning champ Stoffel Vandoorne, taking them both out of the race. “He just f**king completely drove me into the wall! F**ks sake, this guy is crazy. If you think this is racing, this is not normal man. This is just amateur.
Sounds like the guys at DS PENSKE need a swear jar!
Buemi and Bird get close
They might have the same powertrain in their cars, but Envision Racing’s Sebastien Buemi wasn’t impressed with Jaguar TCS Racing’s Sam Bird during Sunday’s race. “What silliness from Sam,” the season 2 championship said about Bird. “I hope he didn’t puncture my tyre!”
Buemi would later pick up damage to his front wing towards the end of the race. “Oh it’s slowing down so much! It’s a p**stake, what about my front wing? It’s not racing anymore. Try to reassure me because I am very scared right now. I need to have a lot more front. It’s completely stopped, it’s not racing anymore.”
Bird didn’t escape problems later down the line either, as he later revealed that he’d been hit by Mahindra Racing’s Oliver Rowland. “Now my front wing has gone. For f**ks sake,” Bird added. “I need to box. It’s smoking everywhere. That’s the problem with these f**king races man, you try your best to be clean. Can’t believe it, I was racing so clean, so clean.”
Dennis' damaged car makes the podium
Despite finding himself on the podium in Round 8, the Avalanche Andretti of Jake Dennis sounded like it had damage after contact in Sunday’s race. “Just keep going if we can,” this season’s Mexico City race winner is told. “It’s absolutely f**ked mate, got absolutely rear ended,” Dennis replied, before he’s reminded to continue if it’s safe to do so.
“It like falls over on itself. Throughout left handers it’s f**ked.”
Dennis still managed to finish in second, despite his car troubles to give him his first points since Diriyah.