Jaguar Formula E driver Sam Bird says he is “struggling” to accept many drivers involved in the heavy crash in the New York EPrix were credited with their positions before the red flag.
A heavy downpour in the final ten minutes of the first Formula E race in New York led to multiple drivers at the front of the field aquaplaning off the track along the back straight and into the barriers at turn six, including race leader Nick Cassidy, second placed Lucas di Grassi, Stoffel Vandoorne and Edoardo Mortara. Third placed Robin Frijns managed to avoid the walls and inherited the lead, while there was a secondary crash behind him when Pascal Wehrlein’s damaged Porsche stopped out of turn seven with damage and was hit by Bird, Jake Dennis and Nyck de Vries.
The race was soon stopped with a red flag, with Frijns leading ahead of Mortara, Mitch Evans and Nyck de Vries in fourth. However, after a lengthy delay, race director Scot Elkins announced that the race would not be resumed, with the results taken from the end of the penultimate lap – leaving Cassidy as the winner ahead of Di Grassi and Frijns back down in third.
Formula E sporting regulations state that if races cannot be resumed after being suspended under a red flag, the race results “will be taken at the end of the penultimate lap before the lap during which the signal to suspend the race was given.” Speaking after the race was ended, Bird said he felt the race being abandoned had denied him an opportunity to fight for the win at a potential restart.
“I’m disappointed because, obviously, if it restarted, I had the chance to win the race – and then it goes back two laps,” Bird told the Formula E world feed coverage after the race.
“The rules are the rules and the people up front, they were doing the best job. But, for me, if you crash, I don’t see how you can then be on the podium or get more points. So I’m struggling with that right now.”
Bird said that scoring points after being credited with ninth in the final results was of little consolation to him.
“I’ve got points in the last, like, four races, but I’ve got very, very little points,” he said. “So I was looking forward to getting some big ones today. Obviously, that’s not the case and we move on to tomorrow.”
Formula E
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