- The Spanish team continues its path towards the final of the X Prix despite being hit by a rival car in the second Qualifying session.
ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team will race on Sunday in the second Semi-Final of the Desert X Prix, where it will try to qualify for the Final of the first event of the Extreme E season. It will do so despite the fact that today a rival car hit Carlos Sainz in the second Qualifying.
Therefore, in tomorrow's race Laia Sanz and Carlos Sainz will face Andretti United and Chip Ganassi. The Semi-Final will be two laps long and the first two cars to cross the finish line will earn themselves a ticket to the Final of the X-Prix, where they will fight for the overall victory.
Today was the first day of competition for the second season of Extreme E. The day began with a time trial Qualifying session, followed in the afternoon by a second session with two Qualifying races with five cars in each of them.
The initial plan was to have Qualifying races in both sessions, but in the end, the organizers changed the first one to a time trial.
In the morning, Laia and Carlos put together a promising performance of the potential of the team for this new season. Although they were sixth with a 9:21.355, the truth is they could have set a much faster time hadn’t it been for a 7-second penalty for overspeeding slightly in the Switch Zone and for an error of a button during the change of drivers.
This result put the ASXE Team against X44, ABT Cupra XE, Chip Ganassi Racing and Veloce Racing in Qualifying 2. It was the first opportunity to see together in Extreme E three off-road legends like Carlos Sainz, Sébastien Loeb and Nasser Al-Attiyah, who were side by side in the starting grid.
Carlos did a blistering start and took the lead in the first few meters. Loeb passed him afterwards, although Sainz pressed on and even managed to take a corner side by side with him. In the end, though, the car in front picked up a lot of dust and thus he couldn’t close the gap.
Al-Attiyah briefly passed Sainz before coming to the end of the first lap, but the Qatari driver went wide in one corner and, as he rejoined the track, he moved across the racing line of the driver of the ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team. Both cars collided and the damage sustained in the Odyssey 21 made it impossible for Laia Sanz to get behind the wheel for the second lap, thus bringing Qualifying 2 to an end for the team.
After listening to both drivers and their team representatives, the stewards deducted the Qualifying points of the rival car. This circumstance left ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team in sixth place and therefore in the starting grid of the second Semi-Final, together with Andretti United and Chip Ganassi Racing. Two cars out of these three will move on to the Final.
Quotes
Carlos Sainz, driver:
"I would like to look on the bright side, which is that today both Laia and myself were well in terms of pace. The negative thing is the incident we suffered this afternoon because it forced our retirement from Qualifying 2. It wasn’t our fault, as the stewards have said by penalizing our rival. Everything is still at stake for tomorrow, so we will try to get to the Final and to shine there".
Laia Sanz, driver:
"I try to see the positive side, which is the pace that we had this morning. Sadly, I couldn’t run in the afternoon. This is a slight disadvantage for tomorrow because I have covered one lap less, but on Sunday everything starts more or less from scratch. The truth is that we are in a Semi-Final and not in the Crazy Race and that we will have to fight to get to the Final, where anything is possible. Now we will reset ourselves and tomorrow we will send it".
Joan Orús, team principal:
"Today was a challenging day. We have already learnt from the time penalty we received in Qualifying 1 and that penalty topped with the accident that we had in Qualifying 2 prevented us from having fun and showing everyone which position we truly deserved today, which surely was fighting among the Top 3. We have a chance now because tomorrow we will be racing in Semi-Final 2. We will try to seize it and to reach the Final, where we will aim for the podium of the Desert X Prix".
