Audi’s Formula E Debut Ended in Abject Failure

Audi’s highly anticipated Formula E debut in Hong Kong really sucked.

Absolutely nothing went right for Audi during Formula E’s season-opening weekend. Team Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler’s new e-tronFE04 cars looked fast during free practice, but due to a red flag during qualifying drivers Daniel Abt and Lucas di Grassi were forced to start from P4 and P6, respectively.

The weekend’s opening race on Saturday was a rough and tumble affair on the cramped street circuit, with di Grassi the victim of contact with Sébastien Buemi as the pair dueled early in the race. Colliding with the Swiss broke di Grassi’s right rear suspension which forced the reigning champion to limp back to the pits and swap to his second car. He would end up finishing a lap down in 18th place.

Meanwhile, teammate Daniel Abt looked good for a podium position before the pit stop phase. When Abt came in to swap cars, his second e-tron FE04 simply wouldn’t switch on right away. As a result, Abt dropped to P9 before clawing himself up to 5th.

The bad luck seeped into the second race on Sunday as well.

Following a well-earned victory on his 25th birthday, Abt was stripped of the win during post-race scrutineering. The stewards noted a mismatch between part numbers listed in the car’s technical passport and what was actually installed on the car. Abt’s exclusion from classification came even though the parts were identical and within homologated specifications. Audi is appealing the alleged administrative mistake.

Following his accident on Saturday, Lucas di Grassi remained without points on Sunday after his car developed a battery issue.

“That we had a strong race performance on both days is a positive,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dieter Gass. “But it goes without saying that we had a somewhat different idea of Sunday night.

The post Audi’s Formula E Debut Ended in Abject Failure appeared first on VWVortex.

from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2ig34aW
via IFTTT

Comments

You can't scam VW by buying a dirty diesel now and still get full payout

Filed under: Government/Legal , Green , Volkswagen , Diesel VW's lawyers have naturally put in a clause that will prevent anyone from buying a known dirty TDI from getting the full buyout amount from the OEM. Continue reading You can't scam VW by buying a dirty diesel now and still get full payout You can't scam VW by buying a dirty diesel now and still get full payout originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 30 Jun 2016 14:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments from Autoblog Volkswagen http://ift.tt/297SxtR

2018 Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster Review

“Supercars just don’t excite me anymore.” These words, spoken to me over a month ago by another journalist, friend, and (so-called) enthusiast were echoing in my head for far too long, but they’ve finally been drowned out. Drowned out by the wail of a naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12 engine mounted in the middle of the new Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster. My friend’s point is that back in the good old days, there was a crop of supercars that captured the imagination with amazing style, sounds, performance, and more. Today, it seems like everything is capable of supercar performance, with large luxury sedans outdoing some of the best and most dedicated teams of car nuts, while former pillars of automotive excellence are suddenly pumping out family-friendly SUVs. Beyond that, another league of supercars, dubbed hypercars have cropped up with hybrid gas-electric powertrains that make magical things happen quickly, but at the cost of the acoustic drama, visual flair, and engag...

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier. The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow. While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something . To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it. Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait. So with this in mind, we lined our G...

Vorderman Volkswagen

Search This Blog