Pole-to-midfield slump sparks NextEV concern

Nelson Piquet Jr led almost the entire first stint from pole position before dropping to third after hitting the wall avoiding a crashed Jose Maria Lopez, while team-mate Oliver Turvey ran second early on.

They ran third and fourth as Lopez's car was recovered with the race neutralised by a safety car, with Turvey pitting during the caution period and Piquet stopping just as the safety car came in.

Turvey had a slow car swap and dropped behind Nick Heidfeld, while the poor timing of Piquet's stop meant he fell to ninth.

Both drivers then lost further ground as the race progressed.

"It seems in the race a lot different to qualifying," Turvey told Autosport.

"I did everything I could and it was a struggle - the first stint and the second, trying to hit the energy targets [while] the other cars were much quicker."

The team's new powertrain has much better peak performance than its underwhelming predecessor.

Piquet moved into a four-second lead early on but Sam Bird and Sebastien Buemi were reeling him in before his crash and the emergence of the safety car four or five laps before the expected pitstops meant it was unclear whether there would have been any late drop in performance.

After the pitstop Piquet initially ran competitively before fading to 11th, while Turvey fell from fourth to eighth.

The struggles for both drivers, though manifested in different ways, could point to a fundamentally inefficient package.

Turvey was trying to run longer on the first stint, hence slipping back from Piquet, but he was failing to save more energy despite running at a slower pace.

His 'fight' with Nicolas Prost in the second stint after they stopped at the same time illustrates his issue.

Once the Renault e.dams driver passed Turvey on lap 26 the gap expanded constantly to 23 seconds in the remaining 19 laps.

A good point of comparison for Piquet is eventual race winner Buemi, who ran third in the first half of the race and was not significantly quicker than Piquet in that phase.

After he fell back, Piquet gained six seconds on a conservative Buemi in the first half of the second stint but shipped more than 10s in the next dozen laps as he attempted to balance his energy decline.

Turvey said it was "encouraging to have a quick car" but called for an analysis into the efficiency issues before the next race in Marrakech on November 12.

"Qualifying was great, but that's a flat-out single lap," he said. "It's a very different format to the race.

"We have to look into it. You have to have an efficient package."