Santiago E-Prix – Reigning Formula E champion Lucas di Grassi will go into the fourth round of the 2017/18 season with a 10-place grid penalty.
The penalty is for Audi changing the inverter on one of his cars, having used up its joker change at the previous round in Marrakesh when di Grassi suffered a power loss during his super pole lap.
He then retired from the race while running in fourth with the same issue, meaning the Brazilian still has not scored points so far this season after suffering mechanical woes in the opening two rounds in Hong Kong.
Audi Team Principal Allan McNish is confident that the issue is now resolved:
“We got to the bottom of the issues we had in Marrakesh,” he said.
“We reproduced the problem on our test bench but the component is sealed by the FIA and so we were not in a position to fix it without incurring a penalty.”
di Grassi sits 54 points behind championship leader Mahindra’s Felix Rosenqvist, who has won two of the three races so far.
Team mate Daniel Abt has also suffered issues, losing his Hong Kong victory due to an administrative error involving the powertrain elements he was using in that race.
