Piquet triumphs at Long Beach, US in Formula E race

Pictures courtesy FIA Formula E 

Thirty five years on, the Brazilian national anthem was played again at Long Beach to celebrate a Piquet victory. On the afternoon of April 4, 2015 Nelson Jr. took his first Formula E win in the same spot where his father scored his maiden Formula 1 victory. As for the boys from Mahindra Racing, Bruno Senna came in fifth while his teammate Karun Chandhok came in 12^th.

Also confirming that sometimes history likes repeating itself, another fellow countryman found his way to the podium: back in the day it was Emerson Fittipaldi, while now it was Lucas Di Grassi who took third position. Only the nationality of the second-placed driver was different to that of the race on March 30, held 35 years ago, with France’s Jean-Eric Vergne in the second place that had gone to Italy’s Riccardo Patrese.

Just a short distance from Hollywood, Formula E once again put on a spectacular show, watched by 23,000 spectators who packed the Long Beach grandstands and paddock. Among them were film stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Adrien Brody and from the world of fashion, Irina Shayk, to add some sparkle to the Long Beach stage. For the sixth time in as many races, there was a different winner: Piquet’s name can thus be added to those of Di Grassi (Beijing,) Bird (Putrajaya,) Buemi (Punta del Este,) Da Costa (Buenos Aires) and Prost (Miami,) which confirms how closely matched is the first ever electric championship.

According to an FIA Formula E press note, the Brazilian took a richly deserved win, leading practically from start to finish. Having started from second, alongside Daniel Abt, Nelson got past the German under braking for the first corner and, from then on, kept the lead throughout, carving out a small but constant gap to his closest rivals. In the first stint, which saw the race neutralised twice in the early stages, firstly when Speed went off into the barriers at turn 2 and the second when Pic and Trulli collided, the former penalised, the latter forced to retire, Abt was able to keep in Piquet’s slipstream, while Vergne made the most of the first restart to pass Buemi and move into third place. In the run of pit stops, which came later than usual, because of those neutralised periods, Andretti Autosport’s French driver managed to gain another place and sit behind Piquet Jr. but he never looked likely to pass the Brazilian. Abt kept third spot up until lap 32, when he had to pit to take a penalty for excessive energy usage. Thus team-mate Di Grassi moved up into a podium position which he had to defend to the bitter end, from Buemi who was keen to make up for the disappointment of losing pole: the Swiss driver had actually been fastest in qualifying, but his best time was later cancelled for going over the permitted limit of energy consumption.