After a difficult Rome ePrix, Renault e.dams co-owner Jean-Paul Driot has labelled the French marque's results as "disappointing," taking a meagre eight points away from the weekend.
In qualifying, Season Two champion Sebastien Buemi secured a place inside the Super Pole shootout, making a mistake in his final flying lap which placed him fifth on the grid while team-mate Nico Prost struggled, setting the 15th fastest time of the session.
In the race, Buemi dropped back by one position on the opening lap after being passed by NIO's Oliver Turvey but regained fifth before pitting. Inside the top ten, there was a split strategy, however, and the Swiss driver ultimately lost out in his second stint after having less usable energy, leaving him in sixth place at the finishing line.
Energy problems also hampered the race of Prost who dropped back from tenth place in the second half of the race to finish in 14th.
“Our results are a bit disappointing," said Driot.
"We obviously chose the right strategy, exactly the same as the future winner’s [Sam Bird]. But the latter didn’t have to keep drivers behind him in the way Seb did: maybe that explains the gap at the finish.
"What’s sure is that we consumed too much energy to be able to hold off the drivers who had to cover a lap less in the second stint. The engineers are going to analyse all the data to find out what went wrong."
Buemi, who sits fourth in the Drivers' Championship, mirrored Driot's thoughts on what was a poor showing of performance for the reigning Teams' Champions:
“It’s a disappointing result," he said. "I felt that the car was handling well and I was only five seconds behind Bird after the first stint. But we consumed too much energy and we have to find out what didn’t work.
"We haven’t yet analysed the data, but I hope that we’re going to find something abnormal to explain why.”
Through the efforts of Buemi and Prost, Renault e.dams have dropped down to sixth place in the Teams' Standings as the 2017/18 season looks set to be the first year in Formula E that the outfit will not win the Teams' Championship.
While Buemi has scored 60 points and three podium finishes this season, Prost has struggled, taking seven points away from the first seven races of the campaign.
This year marks Prost's worst season in the all-electric series to date, finishing inside the top ten only on three occasions – a harsh opposite to his performance of Season Three where the driver scored 11 consecutive points finishes although he hasn't stood on the podium since the 2016 London ePrix – a race that was held two seasons ago.
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