The first of two races in Berlin was one filled with incidents and crashes. It was seemingly impossible for the drivers to stay out of trouble, which Ticktum and Di Grassi experienced first-hand. In the 21st lap of the race, Di Grassi was hit by Ticktum, after which the Brazilian had to retire his car. Ticktum eventually finished the race in P14.
Right after the incident, Di Grassi jumped on the teamradio and said that he was T-boned by the ERT driver. After the race, Ticktum told Pit Debrief that he thinks it’s a bit of a harsh comment. “I’ve spoken to him. He’s mature about it, as I would expect from someone with his experience and intelligence, but I think T-bone is harsh.”
“I’ve looked at it with the stewards. I think four out of ten would argue it’s a racing incident, six out of ten would probably argue it was my fault. Like, it’s not quite that clear-cut. He left room at the apex and I just put my nose in.”
According to Ticktum, he didn’t have much of a choice. “The problem is, if I don’t go for a move, I’ll get done around the outside. We’re all lifting so early, and if you don’t go for a move, you’ll get done. It’s just chaos.”
“The problem is: there was a small gap in front of Lucas. So he puts his car in the middle to defend; someone goes here, someone goes there. You had [Maximilian] Günther on the outside of him, he was cutting back, which forced Di Grassi to sort of slow down. If Günther wasn’t there, maybe Di Grassi could have opened the corner a bit more, and we wouldn’t have hit.” A racing incident, he explains. “It’s chaos.”
After the previous round in Monaco, a lot of drivers voiced their opinions about the chaos in Formula E. But according to Ticktum, Berlin is even worse than Monaco was. “Monaco was better than this. This was the worst, this was terrible, worse than Misano.”
“I think the track’s too small, I think the energy targets are too low, so there’s too much lifting, there’s too much coasting. I think there are some driving standards, of people moving under breaking, that needs to be addressed. But like I say, you have such a long lift phase. You’ve got… I don’t know, there’s so much time to sort of move around. The racing is just not organic enough.”
