- The ASXE Team set the second-fastest time overall in Qualifying for the Desert X Prix, scoring 11 points for the Championship.
- This result puts the team in Semi-Final 1, where the three-fastest teams will race for two places in the Final.
ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team has advanced to the Semi-Final 1 of the Extreme E Desert X Prix, a solid result achieved after its drivers, Carlos Sainz and Laia Sanz, finished today’s Qualifying session with the second-fastest time overall.
The first day of track action of the revolutionary off-road electric championship began with an added challenge for the ASXE Team, given that yesterday Carlos Sainz wasn’t able to complete his installation lap following an issue in the steering of his Odyssey 21.
Therefore, the two-time World Rally champion and three-time Dakar winner faced Qualifying without knowing the nine kilometres of the track in their entirety, but this circumstance didn’t stop the 58-year-old Spaniard.
In Qualifying 1, Carlos and Laia put themselves in provisional third place setting a combined time of 11:16.231. They completed their laps with great skill while the complexity of the track took its toll in some of their rivals.
Before the start of the second session, the mechanics of the Spanish team changed the battery of the Odyssey 21 after discovering an issue in one of its cells. This didn’t imply a penalty.
Laia Sanz was the first driver on track in Qualifying 2 and Carlos Sainz brought the car to the finish, lapping in 11:20.864. The aggregate time of both sessions, 22:37.095, put the team in second place.
This result means that tomorrow the ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team will race in the Semi-Final 1, where the three fastest cars of Qualifying will compete for two positions in the Final. It will be a 2-lap race and it will include a driver switch.
Quotes
Carlos Sainz, driver:
"Considering it is only the first day of racing, we are pretty happy in general. We did the second-fastest time overall and we scored good points. Tomorrow we will be in the first Semi-Final, where only two teams will reach the Final. We will try to do a good job. The goal for this Sunday is to make it to the Final. We know it will be tough judging by the lap-times we have seen today, but the team is in good spirits. The start will matter a lot. It will be the first race with do with all the cars starting side by side in the dust, so it will be interesting".
Laia Sanz, driver:
"Today was a positive day. There were many unknowns before Qualifying, but we were further ahead than what I expected and I am happy. It was a busy day, but we made it through quite well. Maybe I played it a bit safe in the first Qualifying, but we improved the car for the second one and the times were faster. Extreme E is particularly tricky because you have to be competitive from the very beginning and it is difficult to adapt yourself that fast, but my feeling in the car has improved. We are heading in the right direction. The goal for Sunday is to do a good Semi-Final and to finish in the Top 2, because that would put us in the Final, which would be a great result for this first weekend of racing".
Albert Fàbrega, team principal:
"We are very happy with today’s result. Laia and Carlos drove excellently on the track even though it was in very tricky conditions. It was very easy to miss the right lines or to suffer an accident, as we saw in other competitors. We picked up as the day progressed. We were able to do changes in the car and we improved a lot its speed. Both drivers felt more confidence at the wheel as the day went by. Even though yesterday Carlos couldn’t do his installation lap, today it was an extraordinary day for the whole team. We have a lot of confidence going into tomorrow and we are really looking forward to improving the car just so Laia and Carlos can make the most of it and keep up the progress we saw today in the first day of racing".
