Engel Furious After Race-Ending Incident

Maro Engel has described his disappointment after his incident with Oliver Turvey in the Santiago E-Prix which led to a premature retirement for the Venturi Formula E driver.

Engel retired from Saturday’s fourth round of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship after making good first-lap progress by jumping from 11th to ninth position in his Venturi VM200-FE.

However, the German’s race soon ended in the barriers on the opening lap after initial contact with Turvey’s NextEV NIO Sport 003 and then the Mahindra M4Electro of Felix Rosenqvist.

“I was alongside Turvey as we braked for Turn 5; he braked very late and came across my front and I just managed to pull out of the move,” Engel told e-racing365. “He was very aggressive.

“Then I got a run on to him at Turn 8 and he covered the inside. There was a bit of a concertina affect there so I moved next to him on the outside and we were side-by-side at the hairpin.”

Contact was made on the exit of the hairpin and into the following corner.

“He just plain drove me in to the wall,” Engel explained.

“It felt deliberate and I am very pissed off about it because it was a hard hit and really unnecessary.

“If he was genuinely trying to leave any room it was a really bad effort.”

The rear-left suspension on Engel’s car was broken in the incident and after attempting to continue he came under further attack from Rosenqvist.

“I still tried to go around and do another lap,” he said.

“Felix lunged me into Turn 9 and ran me all the way over to the exit and clipped my front-left which sent me into the barrier on the right.

“With Felix, I really believe he was just clear of me and he could use the full width, but with Turvey, it was just a really bad example of how to go racing.

“He knew I had the inside for Turn 9 and he chose to do what he did, there is not much more to say.”

Turvey was unavailable for comment when contacted by e-racing365.

No DTM for Engel as Formula E Takes Priority

Mercedes has announced that Engel will not continue in DTM this season as the German is set to priotitize his Formula E and GT3 commitments.

He returned to DTM last season notching up a win in Moscow on his way to 15th in the final standings.

There are two clashes between Formula E and DTM this year, something which Engel acknowledged influenced the decision for him to forgo another year in the German series.

“It’s a pity the Formula E and the DTM racing calendars overlap to some extent this season,” he said.

“Unfortunately, there’s no easy solution, because I would love to be lining up again in the DTM, especially as it’s Mercedes-AMG’s final year in the series.”

“With an eye to the future, though, we decided that I would concentrate fully on Formula E and GT racing in 2018.”