Race-ending Santiago crash ‘similar’ to FP1 accident - Buemi

Sebastien Buemi says that his crash while leading the FIA Formula E Santiago E-Prix felt similar to issue that led to his accident in free practice. 

The Nissan e.dams driver led much of the race after starting from pole position following the exclusion of Audi’s Lucas di Grassi from qualifying in Chile. 

But entering the closing stages and under significant pressure from the chasing Sam Bird, Buemi locked up and hit the wall at the fast right hander at Turn 7 - where he also crashed during practice - forcing him into retirement. 

“I still need to understand but basically I had a similar problem to what we had in FP1,” Buemi explained. 

“Clearly it looks like something was wrong with the brakes and that pushed me off. Once I was on the little stones I couldn’t really brake.” 

Despite losing the opportunity to end his victory drought - with his last win coming at the Berlin E-Prix in 2017 - the season two champion said he was encouraged by the positive gains made by Nissan since the start of 2018/19. 

“I try to take the positives because clearly when you have pole position and you are leading most of the race, we were quick,” Buemi added. 

“We had a massive improvement compared to the first race in Riyad where we were very slow. 

“Now we were one of the quickest in the race so I will take the positives from that and come back stronger in Mexico.”