Pepe Martí addresses scary Formula E airborne crash: 'More hurt mentally than physically'

Pepe Martí revealed he was unharmed in his terrifying crash on his Formula E debut in the season-opening São Paulo E-Prix, but was left "more hurt mentally" after losing a potentially staggering result.

Martí had performed impressively on his competitive debut and looked set for a possible top-five finish, despite having suffered a broken wishbone in the only practice session of the event — practice on Friday evening was cancelled due to technical communication issues.

However, as a full-course yellow was triggered in the closing laps after Mitch Evans’ crash, Martí was caught out by drivers ahead of him slowing, causing him to launch over the back of Antonio Félix da Costa’s Jaguar and Nico Müller's Porsche.

The accident saw Martí’s car go airborne and barrel-roll before coming to rest, resulting in an immediate red flag.

Thankfully, Martí quickly escaped the wreckage, but he was left bitterly frustrated to have lost big points on his debut.

"Yeah, I’m OK," Martí told two media outlets, including RacingNews365. "I’m more hurt mentally than physically, to be fair. I mean, we were looking at a really good result.

"We didn’t do FP1 yesterday — broke the wishbone on the first lap of the day — and we were looking at a top five.

"So yeah, we turned things around really well as a team. I think everybody did their job really, really well. Strategy-wise, we were looking at a very good result. And performance-wise, it was very good."

Martí's marshals interaction

The front of Martí’s car was on fire following the accident, with the Spaniard having retrieved a fire extinguisher before marshals arrived at the scene of the crash.

On the TV feed, Martí appeared to be frustrated by the slow response of the marshals, although he acknowledged that they seemed to get stuck behind a safety gate.

"Yeah, I jumped out quickly and I saw the front tyre was obviously under the car and on fire, and it was literally burning the chassis," explained Martí. "So I was like, ‘Come on, get here.’

"And they were really struggling to get over the gate, which I have nothing against. They were struggling to get through the safety gate, and I was trying to accelerate things.

"And obviously, I knew the car was really damaged anyway, but if I can help in any way to reduce some of the after-damage that was done, I was trying to help."

It was a wild wake-up call to how aggressive and close Formula E racing is for the 20-year-old, who was caught by surprise at the level of contact between drivers while fighting.

"Yeah, I’m not sure how many of my radio messages were on TV, but I was quite pissed off with some of the drivers," added Martí. "I understand that it’s a contact sport, and positions are very valuable in Formula E.

"But yeah, I was quite surprised with the level of contact that there is in a Formula racing series, and the driving standards are sometimes below what I expected during the competition.

"Obviously, I made a mistake, and that’s me to blame, but yeah, I’ll have to adapt, because that’s probably not going to change."

Martí was quickly deemed at fault for the crash and has received four penalty points and will start the Mexico City E-Prix next month from the back of the grid.