Formula Alpine: Saucy clearly on course for title 🎥
FOR THE FULL OPEN FORMULA E WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Grégoire Saucy celebrated his seventh victory of the season in Formula Alpine at Spa. The other Swiss drivers, like those in the Formula E World Championship in London, came away virtually empty-handed. After six of ten events in 2021 and twelve races so far, Grégoire Saucy from the Jura region is the winner of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine, [...]
After six of ten events in 2021 and twelve races so far, Grégoire Saucy from Jura is still on course for the title in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine, known as Formula Alpine for simplicity's sake.
In the junior championship, which is contested with Tatuus Formula 3 race cars with Renault turbo engines, the talent from Bassecourt celebrated his seventh win of the season on Sunday at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Only and of all places did Saucy remain winless on a race weekend so far at the Formula 1 in Monaco, where he conceded two zeros in May.
Reassuring points lead
Starting from pole position, he had to fight hard for victory in Sunday's race against rebellious teammate Gabriele Mini. The 16-year-old Italian had overtaken Saucy from the slipstream shortly after the start and then fought back doggedly, but ultimately unsuccessfully.
For Saturday's race, the Swiss qualified only in 24th position after a strategy error, but then drove masterfully to eighth place in the rain. With a total of 189 points, Saucy now leads the championship by 60 points, which corresponds to two race wins plus a fourth place.
Of the other Swiss in the 33-strong field, only Axel Gnos made it into the top 20 on Sunday. Léna Bühler placed 27th twice, and unlucky Jasin Ferati dropped out in both races right at the start.
Buemi does not want to succeed
At the penultimate Formula E weekend in London, where the circuit ran through an exhibition hall, Sébastien Buemi only shone in third place in qualifying for Race 1, which the Vaudois finished in a supposed fourth place in his Nissan Leaf electric racer.
However, the commissioners subsequently took him and his teammate Oliver Rowland out of the classification for exceeding the maximum permitted amount of energy.
In Sunday's race, a penalty stop due to a collision with Audi driver René Rast threw him far back. He was unable to finish higher than 13th in net terms. Jake Dennis on a BMW and Alex Lynn on a Mahindra took British race wins at the London E-Prix.
Many incidents marked the second and, in the end, bizarre race in London due to an unsuccessful strategy by Audi and Lucas di Grassi.
Handicap for Mortara now over
Still the world championship leader a few weeks ago, Edoardo Mortara lost further ground. Because of this, the Geneva driver was assigned to the first starting group and only managed to qualify in 16th place on the "green" track.
He did damage limitation by making up ground to 11th place, which earned him two points for advancing to P9 after the two Nissan drivers were disqualified. On Sunday, Edo advanced from P20 on the grid to P11 only after making self-earned and inherited place gains.
Who will be the first Formula E world champion?
Although Mortara has now slipped to ninth place in the world championship, his chances of winning the title remain intact with a 20-point gap to world championship leader Nyck de Vries (NL) in a Mercedes. At the last two races in Berlin in mid-August, he no longer has to qualify in the first group, which significantly improves his starting position.
Theoretically, more than half of all drivers still have a real chance of winning the title, but Sébastien Buemi is no longer one of them after the botched London weekend.
