Five cars withdraw from Cape Town FE race, one more in doubt

The Cape Town Formula E field has lost five of its 22 cars and one more is in doubt after Mahindra withdrew its whole quartet during qualifying and a controversial crash left Edoardo Mortara and Sam Bird with wrecked cars.

Mahindra supplies powertrains for both its works pairing Oliver Rowland and Lucas di Grassi and the Abt Cupra squad’s Nico Mueller and Kelvin van der Linde.

None of the four ran at all when the qualifying groups began, and Mahindra then issued a statement saying “rear suspension safety concerns” meant it would not take part in the rest of the event. The new Cape Town track is regarded as the most bumpy on the calendar.

“A thorough investigation on the suspension elements of the Mahindra M9Electro race cars will take place on the team’s return to the UK,” the statement continued.

“The safety of our drivers and extended teams is of utmost importance at this point in time.”

The issue means South African van der Linde – who is standing in for the injured Robin Frijns at Abt – misses his home race.

Maserati driver Mortara lost it at the very fast Turn 9 left-hander where Sebastien Buemi had crashed on Friday, slewing violently into the outside wall.

His team-mate Maximilian Guenther narrowly missed Mortara’s crashed car, but it was collected moments later by Bird’s Jaguar – which had spun backwards into the wall at the same point and then rebounded into Mortara’s.

Both drivers were unhurt but Jaguar announced after qualifying that Bird’s car could not be repaired in time for the race as it requires a chassis change. The status of Mortara’s Maserati is uncertain as the team assesses it.

Red flag signals were displayed on the timing screens immediately after Mortara’s crash but were not visible on track until Bird had crashed as well.

The Race understands that there was a delay in the process in issuing the red flag from being displayed on the official monitors to being physically shown on the track.

Formula E operates a red flag-only policy in qualifying to ensure that competitors’ laps are not compromised. Race director Scot Elkins is known to have discussed the procedure and what led to Sam Bird’s weekend-ending incident with team principal James Barclay after qualifying.

Elkins was heard saying “goddamn!” over the radio channels as the crashes unfolded.

The Race understands that Bird was distracted by a radio message key signal as he turned into Turn 9.

Bird’s Jaguar team boss James Barclay said his driver had reported that no yellow flags were shown before he came across Mortara’s accident and the team had been unable to see on the tracking system where Mortara had come to a stand.

“It’s a concerning incident in what led up to that moment,” said Barclay.

“Sam said there were no yellow flags and unfortunately on the track map we couldn’t see where Edo had stopped on track so we weren’t sure where it was.

“We couldn’t warn Sam and there were no yellow flags. So we have to review that because on a street circuit, with blind [corner] entries, good flagging is absolutely critical.

“Sam would’ve been able to back off if he’d seen double yellows, but [there were] no flags and by the time the race director came over the radio it was already too late so that’s a big shame.”

Rookie Sacha Fenestraz took his first FE pole at only the sixth attempt, and ended a pole drought for the works Nissan team stretching back to Rowland’s June 2021 Puebla pole.

Fenestraz dismissed double champion Jean-Eric Vergne in the qualifying quarter-finals and Nick Cassidy in their semi.

Championship leader Pascal Wehrlein starts sixth after losing out to Cassidy in their quarter-final. Cassidy, Mitch Evans and Vergne fill places three to five behind the Fenestraz/Guenther front row.

After his heavy Friday crash, Buemi went into the wall again in his qualifying quarter-final but less destructively. He’s on row seven alongside Dan Ticktum.

Mortara will start 15th if he is able to participate in the race. Bird would’ve been ninth on the grid.

The removal of the planned chicane complex at Turns 8 and 9 – as revealed by The Race on Thursday – has made Cape Town’s FE track extremely fast, but drivers fear overtaking might be limited.

The 40kWh useable energy allowance has not changed since the slight track modification, and some drivers are concerned that it will mean the race is a high-speed sprint with limited energy conservation and therefore little opportunity to overtake.

Speaking before his crash, Bird suggested the race should either be a lap longer or there should have been a reduction in usable energy to 39kWh.

“There’s not enough lifting and I think there needs to be more differences between the cars,” Bird told The Race.

“When you’re running this much flat out it’s too easy for everybody, too easy.

“We need to make it harder and I think they should have reduced that [kWh allowance] by one or two or increased the laps by one or two.”

But Bird also caveated that there would be at least one prime overtaking area, into the Mouille Point Turn 10 right-hander on the seafront.

“Turn 10 is the one that probably has the most potential [for overtaking],” he said.

“But, you know, there have been races before where we thought there’s not going to be much overtaking and it’s been crazy.

“When we used to have the old Monaco layout, people go, ‘well you can’t ever take any kind of risk’ and then there’s 30 overtakes in a race or whatever.

“Let’s see. I think it needs to be at least one lap longer than it is really.”

Drivers have praised the 1.81-mile circuit, saying that it has similarities to the Rome E-Prix circuit which undulates its way around the EUR district of the eternal city.

But there were some surprises during the track walk including several bumps that caused issues in the free practice sessions.

One of them caught Buemi out and pitched him into the wall at Turn 9, while Nissan’s Norman Nato described them to The Race as “really huge bumps”.

“The cars are jumping with nearly four wheels on the ground like in Rome, and it’s really tricky to put a lap together,” said Nato.

“It’s like you need a lot of confidence. It’s very easy to lose the car in Turns 2 and 3 for example because you arrive, you brake and [steer] combine. It’s so bumpy, so the car is kind of moving all the time.”

Asked whether there would be overtaking possibilities, Nato replied: “I don’t think so, to be honest, because it’s so very fast. It’s very difficult to follow.”