Last-lap heartbreak needs understanding – Mortara

Edoardo Mortara hailed the Tokyo E-Prix as Mahindra's "strongest race" of Season 10, despite the fact he was disqualified after the race.

The Swiss driver has grown in confidence over recent weeks and made his second consecutive appearance in the duels. However, on this occasion, he progressed to the semi-finals.

Mortara ended up securing a superb third on the grid and remained amongst the points for the entire race.

He had crossed the finish line in sixth which on a normal day would have scored him eight points, although he was disqualified after the race. The FIA stated: "The total energy used was over the maximum of 32 kWh."

Effectively, Mortara used too much energy and has called for Mahindra to investigate what caused it to happen.

“We had our strongest race day this season," said Mortara. "Qualifying we were in the Duels again and ended in P3. We showed great progress, great competitiveness with the car.

“The race was difficult. We know that we are down on energy efficiency compared to the others but we stayed with the leading cars.

"We spent pretty much the entire race in the top three but lost out a bit in the final laps and ended up finishing P6. We had an issue with a little bit of an energy overuse, so we need to understand what happened there.”

'Deserved more'

On the other side of the Mahindra garage, Nyck de Vries retired just prior to the halfway point in the race.

The Dutchman had been having his best weekend of the season after qualifying in P12, but was unfortunate to get caught up in a collision.

Mahindra are now the only team yet to score a point, something de Vries is adamant the team deserve.

“I think the team really deserved more today results-wise after all the hard work they’ve put in during our time together so far," said de Vries. "I think we are showing progress, which is encouraging.

“It didn’t quite work out for me today, I got tangled up in a collision, but that happens when you’re in that area of the grid, and on these super tight tracks. Hopefully we can continue the positive trend forward and score points in the near future.”