Jean-Éric Vergne is confident that Techeetah has the ability to win races in Formula E after he claimed the team’s maiden podium at the Buenos Aires ePrix.
Vergne, following spells with Andretti and DS Virgin, linked up with Techeetah for the 2016/17 season, with the new squad acquiring powertrains from Renault.
Vergne retired in Hong Kong and placed a low-key eighth in Marrakech, but enjoyed a brief spell in the lead at Buenos Aires before eventually finishing second to runaway championship leader Sébastien Buemi.
The result lifted Vergne to fourth in the standings and the Frenchman is confident that he can now emerge as a contender for victories in the electric championship.
“I’m really pleased to bring that first podium to Techeetah, the first of many I am sure,” Vergne commented.
“We’re here to perform well in the championship, win races and fight for the championship.
“We are a new team so nobody could expect us to win races from the beginning of the season, but it’s going to come. I’m extremely pleased.
“Everyone’s going to get even hungrier for more results. It’s a boost of motivation for everybody.”
Vergne believes Techeetah is now in a position to concentrate more on extracting performance from its packaging, rather than prioritising reliability.
“We’re a new team, we come from very far away and didn’t have any testing like the others had,” he said.
“We had new mechanics, new engineers, new everything. You saw the struggle we had in Hong Kong and Marrakech, and I think the whole team did a great job working hard.
“We don’t quite have the pace to beat Seb with a big margin, but we proved in qualifying we are faster [than Buemi]. In the race, I came back quite a lot at the end of the race.
“Now I think that we can make a weekend without any mistakes, we are going to focus on performance much more than reliability. Now we can focus our energy on finding those tenths to get a win.”
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