DS PENSKE driver Jean Eric Vergne reached 1,000 points in Formula E, becoming only the second racer in the electric category to do so.
Sixth place for Vergne was an encouraging start, with the Stellantis-powered cars firmly in the mix with the Andrettis and Jaguar TCS Racing I-TYPE 6 machines.
The Frenchman was unable to find his way past the Jaguar of Mitch Evans, with the New Zealander on the defensive for much of the race. However, he was pleased with the progress made during the off-season.
“Overall, I’m very pleased with the level of performance we showed and it was clearly a good improvement on the start of last season,” he said.
“It’s a pity that some details prevented me from doing better in qualifying, because I had a really good race pace,” he added.
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Team Scoring
DS’ solid start was helped by Vandoorne’s eighth-place finish. The Belgian, the season 8 champion, was caught in the same train behind Evans’ Jaguar.
“For the first race of this new season, I didn’t think it would be that bad,” Vandoorne said. “There have been some changes within the team and, from my point of view, it was the first time working with my new engineer.”
He explained that the most important thing was to have a clean weekend with no major mistakes. “The team placed two cars inside the points, which shows the progress made since last year. But what really makes me happy is to see the potential of the car and the team.”
“It’s clear that we want to achieve better results, but we have all the tools at our disposal to do so,” he concluded.
