D'Ambrosio: Nasr deserved penalty for Hong Kong pile-up

ByMotorsport.com

Published 12/03/2019 at 13:08 GMT

Former ABB FIA Formula E championship leader Jerome d'Ambrosio says Felipe Nasr deserved a penalty for his part in the Hong Kong E-Prix collision that took out both Mahindra Racing cars. after colliding with his Dragon Racing teammate Jose Maria Lopez, before further contact caused his front wing to go under the floor of his car. The damage caused Nasr's car to smoke heavily through to the second

Image credit: Motorsport.com

Former ABB FIA Formula E championship leader Jerome d'Ambrosio says Felipe Nasr deserved a penalty for his part in the Hong Kong E-Prix collision that took out both Mahindra Racing cars.

after colliding with his Dragon Racing teammate Jose Maria Lopez, before further contact caused his front wing to go under the floor of his car.

The damage caused Nasr's car to smoke heavily through to the second lap, when he went straight on into the barriers at the 90-degree Turn 2 right-hander.

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The smoke and angle of Turn 2 meant the unaware Wehrlein hit the rear of Nasr's stricken Dragon car, with d'Ambrosio also colliding with the pair and forcing retirement for all three on the spot.

D'Ambrosio, who lost the championship lead to Envision Virgin Racing's Sam Bird in Hong Kong, told Motorsport.com: "Felipe just stayed out with his damaged car and it failed in Turn 2.

"I don't understand why he didn't stop or pit to be honest with you. I was behind, Pascal was behind.

"It was [a lack of] visibility and the car [Nasr's] failed.

"I definitely think he should have a penalty. You should be penalised for these sort of things, you can't encourage people to keep on racing with a car they know will fail as it's creating an accident."

When d'Ambrosio's comments were put to Nasr by Motorsport.com, he said: "What can I do? Those things are unexpected.

"It [the front wing] breaks and goes under the car, that's it. It could happen to anyone.

Wehrlein also explained to Motorsport.com how he came to be involved in the collision.

"That corner is so tight, so you don't know if someone is stuck in the barrier," he said. "There was no way to stop for me or to go around. Just couldn't do anything to avoid it.

"I kept a one second gap or something around that because he [Nasr] was driving one-and-a-half laps [damaged] like that already, which is a bit weird because it was clear passing the pit once that he would not finish the race like that.

"We couldn't see anything and I was asking Jerome and he said he couldn't see anything as well.

"We had a gap of one second but you can't slow the car down to zero in that second because the corners are so tight.

"We saw in many places today that as soon as a car gets stuck or is in the barriers, everyone has to stop because you can't go around [an incident]."

Formula E Misano