Sebastien Buemi is expecting a tighter season this year following the first of two public tests at Donington Park.
It was clear Renault e.dams had built the best machine at the start of season two and, though they didn’t run away with the championship, they enjoyed the advantage that came with that.
This year, Buemi’s not expecting to keep that advantage.
“For sure, it’s not going to be as big because we have now another two cars having exactly the same car as us, so that’s already one thing,” Buemi said.
Techeetah will be using Renault e.dams power trains as a customer team and, with development of most of the rest of the car still restricted, the new team will effectively be running the same car as the champions.
“Obviously, the others that went a little bit the wrong route have noticed that and improved it,” Buemi said. “I think it’s going to be more difficult. Well, let’s say tighter. But then a race weekend is different to here. You have to finish the race to score points, which is always a bit different compared to testing.”
Buemi was only classified third over the whole three days, but it doesn’t seem to be a sign of what’s to come, with e.dams focusing on software testing.
“We tried a lot of software adjustments, because the test was dedicated to those kind of things and in the wet we focused just a little bit on the set up,” Buemi said. “Hopefully we’ll try to put everything together from what we learned over the preseason testing and the testing now… but I think the car is going ok so far.”
Testing continues this week.
