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In Numbers
Edoardo Mortara
Free Practice One // 1st
Free Practice Two // 8th
Qualifying // 11th [1:40.554, Group A]
Race // 7th
Fastest Lap // 1:41.766
Championship // 1st [49 points]
Lucas di Grassi
Free Practice One // 12th
Free Practice Two // 13th
Qualifying // 12th [1:40.770, Group B]
Race // 11th
Fastest Lap // 1:41.653
Championship // 10th [25 points]
ROKiT Venturi Racing
Championship // 2nd [74 points]
In Detail
ROKiT Venturi Racing finished inside the top 10 in the FIA Formula E World Championship’s return to Rome, scoring six points courtesy of Edoardo Mortara.
In the first part of a double-header event in the Italian capital, Monaco’s only racing team showed promise throughout practice ahead of qualifying for the fourth race of the season.
From Groups A and B, Edo and team-mate Lucas di Grassi narrowly missed out on the duel stages and by both classifying sixth in their respective sessions, lined up in 11th and 12th on the grid.
When the race commenced the duo were caught in a collision with Oliver Rowland which left the pair in 11th and 17th before a subsequent Safety Car period.
In a strategic drive, however, both were able to recover, with Edo advancing through the points-paying positions to threaten for a place on the podium in the closing stages.
The Swiss-Italian took advantage of a hard-fought race to run as high as fifth after passing Jake Dennis moments before a time extension of five minutes.
Falling behind Sam Bird on the penultimate lap, Edo took a provisional sixth at the chequered flag before the application of a five-second penalty which demoted him to seventh.
Lucas, meanwhile, recovered from his loss of time on lap one and displayed strong pace by posting the fastest lap of the race.
The Brazilian challenged for points up until the line but unfortunately missed out on 10th by a mere 0.392s.
Courtesy of his six points, Edo continues to lead the World Drivers’ Championship while ROKiT Venturi Racing holds second place in the Teams’ Standings.
Formula E’s eighth season will continue tomorrow in Rome, with another race at the Circuito Cittadino dell’EUR.
In Their Words
“Today’s race was very challenging and for the third race weekend in a row, the whole field was in a position where, until the leader crosses the line, you don’t know the number of laps you’re going to do. This reflects the close nature of this championship but it also makes it even more challenging than usual from a strategic perspective. We had a tough start for both drivers with the incident in Turn Seven and both sustained damage and lost time but I think we maximised what we could with Edo. He produced a strong recovery drive to take home some valuable points. Unfortunately for Lucas, the time he lost at the start heavily compromised his chance to get back into the top 10. Although it isn’t the result that we want, I think we have shown some positive pace and because this is a double-header, we need to learn quickly so we can prepare for tomorrow as much as possible.”
“It was quite an eventful race from my side. I got stuck with Oliver [Rowland] on the first lap and I tipped him into a spin into Turn Seven which is something you never feel proud of. From there on in it was a struggle. The car was missing a large part of the front wing and as a result, my energy and tyre management was more sensitive. Fortunately, we had good pace and were able to fight back into the top 10 and at one point, were within sight of the podium. We are scoring points today but it isn’t in the way that I would like to. We have another race again tomorrow and if we can get into the duels in qualifying, I think we should be in a position to fight at the front.”
"We were very quick in the race today with fastest lap overall but luck was not on our side. I was caught in the crash between Edo and Rowland at the start and had to recover from last to P11. Tomorrow we fight again.
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