Great pace and points for ERT Formula E Team at Diriyah E-Prix
Silverstone/Shanghai - 27 January 2024
The ERT Formula E Team had a strong second race weekend in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in Saudi Arabia, with Sérgio Sette Câmara matching the team’s best-ever qualifying result on Friday and going on to score the team’s first points of the season, with ERT now ninth in the teams’ championship.
The ERT X24’s one-lap pace was once again very strong at the 2.5km Diriyah street circuit, with Sette Câmara powering through to set the second-fastest time in his qualifying group and progressing straight into the quarter-finals in the qualifying duels. Sette Câmara then won his first duel to make it to the semi-finals, securing fourth place on the grid and matching team-mate Dan Ticktum’s result from last year.
Ticktum was in the same qualifying group as Sette Câmara, but was unable to get the tyres into the right operating window and wasn’t able to progress to the duels, lining up 19th on the grid for the afternoon’s E-Prix.
The race played out excellently for Sette Câmara, who made an incredible start from the dusty side of the grid, briefly getting the nose of his ERT to second place at Turn 1 before he was shuffled wide and rejoined back in fourth place. The Brazilian would drop one spot as he took his first Attack Mode on lap six, after which it was all about keeping a good race pace and managing his energy levels to pick up an important points finish, eventually crossing the finish line in ninth.
Ticktum was comparatively out of position on the grid and so the team employed an alternative strategy, with Ticktum saving energy levels and falling behind the pack and gambling on a late-race safety car which never came, leaving him with a quiet race to 21st.
The second race on Saturday saw both drivers in separate qualifying groups, with Ticktum eighth quickest in his group, losing a few tenths in the final sector, with 15th on the grid a better result for him for Round 3. Sette Câmara just missed out on the duels due to a small mistake on his final run, but still would qualify a competitive ninth on the grid for Saturday’s race.
Sette Câmara held position at the start and ran competitively in a tightly-bunched midfield as the team looked to build on its points finish from Friday, but with another relatively clean race with no interventions, Sette Câmara began to drop back as he took his two Attack Mode deployments and slipped down the order, finishing the race in 18th.
Team-mate Ticktum unfortunately had a race to forget, as a concertina effect at the start into the second corner meant he lost his front wing through contact and was forced to pit for repairs, losing track position. Ticktum would run most of the race over a lap down with no prospect of a points finish.
The weekend as a whole was a positive step forward for the ERT Formula E Team, with Sette Câmara’s two points scored on Friday elevating them to ninth place in the championship, and with a fantastic qualifying result showing the ultimate pace available from the car.
The team now has seven weeks to regroup ahead of Sette Câmara’s home race, the São Paulo E-Prix, on March 16th.
Russell O'Hagan - Chief Operations Officer / Deputy Team Principal
“Overall a very solid weekend here in Diriyah where we better showed our intentions for the season with a great qualifying performance and our first points. A more challenging day followed on Saturday, but one where I was pleased with the team’s adaptability to maximise all sessions and keep learning.
“We will head in to a small break now with good clarity on what we need to improve on, and as always having very much enjoyed the spectacular event here in Riyadh.”
Sérgio Sette Câmara #3
“I’m very happy with Friday in Riyadh. I qualified in the semi-finals and started P4 so that was very good. In the race I was able to stay in the top ten and score some points and finish ninth, which we’re all very pleased with. We all know how hard it is for our car to stay in the points so the team did a great job strategy-wise and I think I also did a good job with the driving.
“On Saturday we had good qualifying again with P9, and we thought we had the chance to score some points if everything went well in the race, but it was a lot harder than we thought. We dropped back and finished P18 which is not the result we wanted. We’re very happy with yesterday’s result - let’s analyse the data and work hard and try to do a good job at the next round, which is my home race in São Paulo.”
Dan Ticktum #33
“On Friday we didn’t get our qualifying right which put us in a difficult position in the race. We tried to do a save-strategy as that was our best hope of the points, but there was no safety car.
“For me it was a pretty terrible weekend, both qualifying sessions we didn’t get the tyre in the window so we didn’t get the most out of a car which I think could have qualified pretty well, so that’s a shame.
“In Saturday’s race, I got caught on the front wing at Turn 2 and there was nothing I could have done about that, it was just a racing incident and that was that really.
“We’ve made some good learnings about our one-lap pace and some good systems knowledge, so let’s see if we can maximise things a bit better in São Paulo.”