Edoardo Mortara was left disappointed in Tokyo after he was disqualified for energy overuse during
The Swiss driver hailed the Tokyo E-Prix as Mahindra’s “strongest race” so far, despite not coming away with a single point.
Mortara qualified in third place and remained amongst the points for the entire race. The Mahindra driver did move into second into the first corner but fell back due to energy efficiency.
He crossed the finish line in sixth place and would have scored eight points, but he was disqualified after the race for exceeding “the maximum of 32 kWh.”
Mortara has called on his team to investigate what caused it to occur.
“We had our strongest race day this season,” said Mortara. “Qualifying we were in the Duels again and ended in P3. We showed great progress, and great competitiveness with the car.
“The race was difficult. We know that we are down on energy efficiency compared to the others but we stayed with the leading cars.
“We spent pretty much the entire race in the top three but lost out a bit in the final laps and ended up finishing P6. We had an issue with a little bit of an energy overuse, so we need to understand what happened there.”
Nyck de Vries had a frustrating day at the office as he retired at the halfway stage of the race.
Mahindra are now the only team yet to score a point, something de Vries is adamant the team deserve.
“I think the team really deserved more today results-wise after all the hard work they’ve put in during our time together so far,” said de Vries. “I think we are showing progress, which is encouraging.
“It didn’t quite work out for me today, I got tangled up in a collision, but that happens when you’re in that area of the grid, and on these super tight tracks. Hopefully, we can continue the positive trend forward and score points in the near future.”
