Buemi wins again in Marrakesh with eDAMS Renault

Sébastien Buemi is now a perfect two in his Formula E title defense, having won in Marrakesh, Morocco, on Saturday afternoon in what was the series’ first visit to Africa.The defending champion qualified second behind Felix Rosenqvist, but was demoted five spots on the grid due to a penalty for an underweight fire extinguisher. As a result, he started seventh but managed his energy and raced one lap longer than Rosenqvist, and had plenty left for the second half of the race.

It was his eighth overall victory in the electric street racing series.

“I had a bad first lap because I consumed a lot of energy, and you don’t want that, but then I started to overtake people, but obviously Felix and the other guys had a very big advantage,” Buemi said. “After a few laps, I realized I was going to go longer, so I knew that I would have the edge in the second stint, and then it was looking very good towards the end of the first stint. But I had a big mistake in turn 11, the one just before the pit entry; I braked too late and I lost the regen and nearly went off.

“When you take the lead, it is always great, but you know all the overtakes were good, maybe the one with Sam and Felix were the best, because they were putting me in a good position.”

Rosenqvist was quick out of the gate and dominated the early stages of the race, at one point enjoying a five-second lead over Jean-Eric Vergne after the pit cycle. Vergne saw his chances dwindle when he was hit with a pit road speeding penalty.

That ultimately allowed Buemi to enter the mix for a top finish. Rosenqvist was powerless to keep the Swiss driver behind, having to conserve energy while his rival swept past with six laps remaining. From there, Buemi managed his pace and cruised to the win.

Meanwhile, Rosenqvist was unable to keep Sam Bird behind him for third. Bird had crashed during second practice and was generally pleased to have gotten this kind of result, given how the weekend started.

“I need to buy the boys a couple of beers tonight, because they worked really, really hard,” Bird said. “It was a big shunt actually, a lot of damage — but yeah the race was ok. We still have a lot of work to do, we struggle in some areas, the circuit is quite different to the ones we normally go to. So our car didn’t behave as brilliantly as the two guys sitting next to me; we struggled a bit more for the balance today, but even so, to come home with 18 points today is pretty strong.”

Nicolas Prost finished fourth, while Lucas di Grassi battled his way up from 12th to complete the top five. Daniel Abt followed in sixth ahead of Oliver Turvey, who overtook Vergne on the final lap . Nick Heidfeld and Jose Maria Lopez finalized the top-10.

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