Renault e.dams pick up where they left off last season at the Hong Kong ePrix

Yesterday, the Renault e.dams opened season three of the FIA Formula E Championship in emphatic fashion with Sébastien Buemi taking his seventh career Formula E win and Nico Prost working his way back through the field to finis fourth in the HKT Hong Kong ePrix. The team leaves Hong Kong with 37 points in the Team Championship, ahead of ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport and Andretti Formula E who both have 18 points.

From fourth on the grid, Buemi drove in a measured and controlled way to take one position on merit and another position thanks to a rival getting tangled up in another's incident and finally P1 thanks to pit stop strategy. The win means Séb starts his Drivers' Championship defence with 25 points to Lucas di Grassi's 18.

If Sébastien's race was measured, then Nico was full of action from start to finish. From P10 on the grid, a mode selection issue meant Nico dropped positions on the initial lap and this was compounded by contact front and rear as the field compressed. On a charge and in the correct mode, Nico blasted past his rivals and worked up the order ending his race just shy of the podium in fourth

In a statement to the media yesterday, Buemi believes that he intitally thought that they made a mistake when the safety car came out but is glad that everything worked out and couldn't be happier with the result and the victory yesterday:-

“Initially I thought we'd made a mistake when we made our pit stop under the safety car, but as we saw it all worked out perfectly. I'm happy with today's result but we certainly had to fight for it. We saw in qualifying just how hard everyone was pushing and the race was not easy for us. I felt a lot happier with the second car today as we made some set-up changes but overall this has been a great weekend and a superb way to start the season.”

Meanwhile Prost still doesn't understand what happened on the first lap on the ePrix but was thankful that he was able to get back to the correct mode and to fight through the grid to get some much needed points:-

“I don't know exactly what happened on the first lap as I got stuck in the wrong mode and I lost a load of places. Fortunately I was back into the correct mode on the straight so I fought like hell to overtake everyone I could; I was really going for every gap possible! In the end our race turned out really well and we had a great strategy. It was a fantastic result for the team today so I'm really happy for everyone.”

And finally Alain Prost, Senior Team Manager of the Renault e.dams team couldn't be anymore happier with their start to the Formula E season and is proud of how the team and its drivers performed in Hong Kong and cannot wait to get to Marrakesh:-

“What a fantastic way to start the season! The first-ever Hong Kong ePrix certainly looked spectacular and we saw some very close competition. I'm particularly proud at how the team delivered in a strong and measured fashion across the whole event. Both drivers drove very well and the strategy worked well.

“Qualifying might not have been as good as we wanted but in the race, everyone gave exactly what was required. Séb drove a very mature and effective race whilst Nico showed great aggression to work back up the order after issues on the first lap. We're all very much looking forward to Marrakesh.”

Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa