First points of Season 8 for DS TECHEETAH at Diriyah 28.01.2022: • 8th place finish for French driver Jean -Eric Vergne at the wheel of the #25 DS E-TENSE FE 2021 • Hit by another competitor during the first lap, Antonio Felix Da Costa was forced to retire. • The second round of the 2022 Diriyah E-prix will take

•    8th place finish for French driver Jean -Eric Vergne at the wheel of the #25 DS E-TENSE FE 2021

•    Hit by another competitor during the first lap, Antonio Felix Da Costa was forced to retire.

•    The second round of the 2022 Diriyah E-prix will take place tomorrow, Saturday 29th January.
 


In the cold of the Saudian desert the first race of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship Season 8 took place this evening. Double Formula E champion, DS TECHEETAH did not get the results it was hoping for.
 


Jean-Eric Vergne started from 13th on the grid and driving the #25 DS E-TENSE FE 2021 made a good start and maintained his place despite low grip on track. After 45 minutes of intense battle, the double Formula E champion took the chequered flag at the 8th position scoring the first points of the season for the team in the Drivers and Teams classifications.
 


Unfortunately, Antonio Felix Da Costa who started from 16th at the wheel of the #13 DS E-TENSE FE 2021 was hit by another competitor on the first lap and was forced to retire.
 


The second round of the 2022 Diriyah E-prix will take place tomorrow at 20:00 local time, with qualifying starting at 15:40.




Thomas Chevaucher, DS Performance Director and DS TECHEETAH Team Principal: “As expected, the performance between all the cars is very tight. This season it’s the small details that will make the difference, and it’s exactly those details that did not allow us to show the pace during qualifying that our drivers had during free practices.


“We also know that when you start a race in the middle of the field it is riskier, and Antonio was one of the victims. On the other hand, JEV showed the performance of the car going from 13th to 8th to score our first points of the season. The team is obviously disappointed but motivated to do better tomorrow.”
 


Mark Preston TECHEETAH CEO: “Well it obviously wasn't the start we wanted to the season after having good pace in Free Practice. Antonio had an unfortunate incident on lap 1 putting him out but JEV continued to fight hard the whole race and moved up a very respectable 5 positions to finish P8. Tomorrow is another day and we will regroup and be pushing for the win”
 


Jean-Éric Vergne, driver of the #25 DS E-TENSE FE 2021: “It was a tough day, I was expecting more than this. Obviously qualifying was not as good as I wished, being blocked by another driver and not able to do another push lap.


We had the pace to fight for the top 3 positions, so it was disappointing, but in the race, starting 13th and finished 8th, we had very strong pace and scored 4 points which is better than nothing. We are lucky that tomorrow we have another race to fight.
 



António Félix da Costa, driver of the #13 DS E-TENSE FE2021: “Obviously it’s not the way we wanted to start the season. We were very happy here before but today was not our day. We had a difficult qualifying and we have several things to improve on for tomorrow.



Unfortunately during the race we had a small glitch with the car at the start which left me vulnerable and then I got hit by another driver and it was the end of my race.”
 



DS TECHEETAH -photo FormulaE