Story highlights
Formula E season set for thrilling climax
Brazilian driver leads rival Buemi by one point
Di Grassi says qualifying key at Battersea
Eight races down, two to go – and just one point between the top two drivers.
The second Formula E World Championship could hardly be more finely poised as it heads into the final weekend of the 2015-16 season with two title-deciding races being run in London’s Battersea Park on July 2/3.
Championship leader di Grassi and second-placed Buemi have been involved in a seesaw fight this season, swapping the lead on the track and at the top of the leaderboard.
Brazilian di Grassi, a three-time winner this season, has a slender one-point lead and will start as favorite to clinch the title, but knows he can’t afford to take his foot off the pedal.
“Being so close, and with (Buemi) having an advantage of the best drivetrain of the season this year, it will be extremely difficult for me to overcome that,” he told CNN.
“The way I will do it is to try to optimize every component, to not make any mistakes, to have the same approach as at the other races and to try and beat him fair and square.”
The ABT Schaeffler team driver also believes the 2.93-kilometer (1.8-mile) Battersea circuit is the hardest on the all-electric race series calendar.
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“It’s fast, it has a lot of corners, and it is the second-longest track of the year,” he said.
“The only downside of Battersea Park is that it’s narrow – not as wide as Berlin, Buenos Aires or Mexico – so to overtake is extremely difficult – so qualifying become very important.”
Former Formula One drivers di Grassi, 31, and 27-year-old Buemi have been slugging it out since the opening round in Beijing.
Di Grassi has been a model of consistency, with seven podium finishes in eight races – the only occasion he has failed to score points was when he was disqualified for infringing car weight rules at the Mexico ePrix in March.
Buemi, on the other hand, has experienced a few more ups and downs.
Three wins and six podiums were accompanied by two failures at Long Beach, where the Swiss finished 16th, and a 12th place in Putrajaya, Malaysia, in November.
The Renault car’s pace has enabled the former Toro Rosso driver to collect a total of 16 bonus points – in Formula E, extra points are awarded for fastest laps, three points for topping qualifying and two for clocking the quickest lap in a race.
“I’m sure we have the speed, but it’s a matter of getting those small details together,” Buemi told CNN in May.
“We always have very good pace in the race but in qualifying, for whatever reason, we struggle to heat up the tires and brakes properly – and that obviously makes me lack confidence.”
But if anyone on the starting grid has the talent to turn a race on its head it’s Buemi, as he demonstrated in Buenos Aires last February, clawing his way up from starting at the back of the grid to finish second, meters behind winner Sam Bird of DS Virgin Racing.
“I made a mistake in qualifying, so starting 18th and finishing second was a special moment. We had great pace and the team did a good job,” he explained.
Buemi takes momentum into the final showdown weekend after his win at the previous race in Berlin, but di Grassi will be a hard man to beat at Battersea Park should the Swiss stumble in qualifying again.
