The 2016 Long Beach ePrix (formally the 2016 Faraday Future Long Beach ePrix) was a Formula E electric car race held on April 2, 2016, before a crowd of 17,000 spectators, at the Long Beach Street Circuit, in Long Beach, California. It was the sixth round of the 2015–16 Formula E Championship, and the final Long Beach ePrix. The 41-lap race was won by Lucas di Grassi for Audi Sport ABT from second place. Venturi driver Stéphane Sarrazin finished second, with Di Grassi's teammate Daniel Abt third.
Sam Bird of Virgin began from the pole position after the fastest driver in qualifying Team Aguri's António Félix da Costa was sent to the rear of the grid for an illegal tire pressure. Bird led for the first 11 laps until he was overtaken by di Grassi on the 12h lap. Di Grassi remained at the front of the field through the mandatory pit stop phase to switch into a second car, but his four-second lead was reduced to nothing when the safety car was deployed on lap 35 after NextEV driver Nelson Piquet Jr. crashed. However, di Grassi kept the lead at the rolling restart to take his second victory of the season, and the third of his career.
The result promoted di Grassi to the lead of the Drivers' Championship with 101 points, after previous leader Sébastien Buemi of e.Dams-Renault scored no points in Long Beach. Bird and Jérôme d'Ambrosio for Dragon maintained third and fourth. Sarrazin's second-place finish moved him from eighth to fifth. In the Teams' Championship, Audi Sport ABT reduced e.Dams-Renault's lead to six points, and Dragon fell from second to third with four races left in the season.
Background The 2016 Long Beach ePrix was confirmed as part of Formula E's 2015–16 schedule in July 2015 by the FIA World Motor Sport Council. It was the sixth of ten scheduled electric car races of the 2015–16 season, and the second edition of the event. It was held at the seven-turn clockwise Long Beach Street Circuit in Long Beach, California on April 2, 2016. Construction of the track began on February 16, more than a month before the race. A later Long Beach City Council resolution authorizing the closure of pathways lining the track was adopted in March 2016. There were nine squads entering two participants for a total of 18 drivers each for the ePrix.
Before the race, e.Dams-Renault driver Sébastien Buemi led the Drivers' Championship with 98 points. Audi Sport ABT's Lucas di Grassi was in second position with 76 points, Sam Bird of Virgin was third with 60 points, and Dragon driver Jérôme d'Ambrosio placed fourth with 58 points. With 44 points, d'Ambrosio's teammate Loïc Duval was fifth. In the Teams' Championship, e.Dams-Renault led with 136 points; Dragon were in second place with 102 points, and Audi Sport ABT were a further ten points behind them in third. Virgin were fourth with 66 points, and Mahindra fifth with 49 points.
After he was disqualified from the victory in the preceding Mexico City ePrix because one of his cars was underweight, di Grassi said his objective in Long Beach was to contend for either the podium or victory, "Being disqualified in Mexico was obviously a setback in the fight for the title. My team has dealt precisely with the circumstances and will do everything in its power to prevent this happening ever again. The issue is now closed for me and I’m only looking forward now: six races, a good 150 points – there is plenty to aim for and our ambition remains unbroken. In Mexico we lost together, the next time we’ll win together again." Abt stated beforehand that his objective in Long Beach was to enter the super pole session of qualifying and to contend for a podium place.
Practice Two practice sessions—both on Saturday morning—were held before the late afternoon race. The first session ran for 45 minutes and the second 30 minutes. A half-hour shakedown on Friday afternoon was led by Duval with a time of 1 minute, 8.016 seconds, followed by his teammate d'Ambrosio and NextEV's Nelson Piquet Jr. Overnight alterations were made to the turn one chicane after drivers raised concerns about its tightness. In the first practice session, held in misty weather and an ambient temperature of , Buemi lapped fastest with a time of 57.383 seconds. Bird was 0.432 seconds slower in second. The Andretti duo of Simona de Silvestro and Robin Frijns were third and fourth. Salvador Durán was the quicker Aguri driver in fifth, and his teammate António Félix da Costa was seventh; they were separated by Stéphane Sarrazin's Venturi in sixth. Di Grassi, Nico Prost of e.Dams-Renault, and Abt were in eighth to tenth positions. Although the session passed relatively peacefully, Di Grassi ran straight off the dirty track at the turn one chicane, and lightly touched a barrier. Prost and Mahindra's Bruno Senna locked their rear brakes and hit the wall. Venturi's Mike Conway, a two-time winner of the Long Beach Grand Prix, went straight on under braking for turn five, but he avoided striking a wall.
In the shorter second free practice session, held i clear weather, the temperature of the track was rising, and drivers immediately drove onto it to familiarize themselves with setting lap times at of power. Buemi set a benchmark time that Virgin's Jean-Éric Vergne bettered. Mahindra's Nick Heidfeld, Sarrazin, Prost and Buemi all held the lead until Abt set the overall fastest lap time of 56.778 seconds with seven minutes remaining. Buemi, Di Grassi, Félix da Costa, Frijns, Bird, Prost, Senna, Sarrazin, and d'Ambrosio made up second to tenth places. As with the first practice session, the second passed without any major incidents, although Duran, Vergne and Frijns (twice) went onto the escape road at turn one; all three executed spin turns to rejoin the track. Heidfeld ran deep going into the same corner, and he swerved to avoid hitting a tire wall. Conway glanced a barrier alongside the circuit on his maximum power lap but he continued with only minor damage.
Qualifying
Saturday afternoon's qualifying session ran for 60 minutes and was divided into two groups of four cars and another two groups with five vehicles. Each group was determined by a lottery system and was permitted six minutes of on-track activity. All drivers were limited to two timed laps with one at maximum power. The fastest five overall competitors in the four groups participated in a "Super Pole" session with one driver on the track at any time going out in reverse order from fifth to first. Each of the five drivers was limited to one timed lap and the starting order of the ePrix was determined by the competitor's fastest times. The driver and team who recorded the fastest time were awarded three points towards their respective championships.
In the first group, Bird set the fastest lap time of any driver in group qualifying at 56.821 seconds. Frjins was 0.324 seconds slower in second. Buemi eased off his accelerator pedal and lost a plethora of grip entering the first turn, and that meant he could drive into the corner in the method he desired due to him carrying excess oversteer, and he was third-fastest. D'Ambrosio and Oliver Turvey of NextEV were the first group's slowest two drivers. Sarrazin was fastest in group two. Prost had problems with his car's speed despite running without aerodynamic turbulence to slow and he took second with De Silvestro third. Duval was the second group's slowest driver, and overall in group qualifying after he hit the turn five barrier with his car's left-rear wheel during his maximum power lap. Abt used a clean track to go fastest in the third group, followed by Vergne who reported discomfort with his breaks. Piquet and Duran set the slowest two times of group three. It appeared at this point that the five drivers who would progress to super pole had been decided, but Félix da Costa was fastest in the fourth group. Di Grassi followed in second place and Heidfeld was third. Senna and Conway rounded out group four.
At the conclusion of group qualifying, Bird, Félix da Costa, Heidfeld, Di Grassi, and Sarrazin's lap times qualified them for super pole. Félix da Costa was the fourth driver to set a lap time, and he set the fastest overall lap in the third sector, and had the speed for an optimal exit leaving the turn seven hairpin, allowing him to take the first provisional pole position of his career with a lap of 57.178 seconds. Bird made an error at turn one but regained some time by using the kerbs to qualify in second on the grid. DI Grassi had an oversteer that qualified him no better than third. Sarrazin had a lack of grip due to oversteer, meaning he drifted wide on the track, and he was restricted to fourth. Fifth-placed Heidfeld had excess oversteer and rear brake locking. He lost time and glanced the turn seven hairpin barrier. After qualifying, Félix da Costa had all of his lap times deleted because a post-qualifying scrutineering inspection discovered the pressure in his left-rear tire was below the permitted limit. Piquet received a ten-place grid penalty for changing his electric motor, his second of the season, and series officials ordered him to spend an additional ten seconds at his pit stop. The application of penalties meant Bird began from pole position, ahead of Di Grassi, Sarrazin, Heidfeld, Frijns, Abt, Buemi, Prost, d'Ambrosio, Senna, Vergne, De Silvestro, Turvey, Conway, Duran, Duval, Piquet, and Félix da Costa.
Qualifying classification +Final qualifying classification Driver Team 1 2 Sam BirdVirgin 12 11 Lucas di GrassiAudi Sport ABT 23 4 Stéphane SarrazinVenturi 34 23 Nick HeidfeldMahindra 45 27 Robin FrijnsAndretti 56 66 Daniel AbtAudi Sport ABT 67 9 Sébastien Buemie.Dams-Renault 78 8 Nico Proste.Dams-Renault 89 7 Jérôme d'AmbrosioDragon 910 21 Bruno SennaMahindra 1011 25 Jean-Éric VergneVirgin 1112 28 Simona de SilvestroAndretti 1213 88 Oliver TurveyNextEV TCR 1314 1 Nelson Piquet Jr.NextEV TCR 1715 12 Mike ConwayVenturi 1416 77 Salvador DuránTeam Aguri 1517 6 Loïc DuvalDragon 1618 55 António Félix da CostaTeam Aguri 18Source:
Notes: – Nelson Piquet Jr. received a ten-place grid penalty for changing his second electric motor of the season. – António Félix da Costa had all of his qualifying lap times deleted because of an irregular tire pressure.
Race The race began before a crowd of 17,000 people at 16:00 Pacific Standard Time (UTC−08:00). The weather at the start were dry and clear. The air temperature ranged from and the track temperature was between . A special feature of Formula E is the "Fan Boost" feature, an additional of power to use in the driver's second car. The three drivers who were allowed to use the boost were determined by a fan vote. For the Long Beach race, Di Grassi, d'Ambrosio, and Heidfeld were handed the extra power. Bird and Di Grassi made equally good getaways but it was Bird who led into the first corner. Although the entire field avoided a major incident on the first lap, Frijns braked heavily for turn one, but he retained control of his car, and fifth from Abt. Félix da Costa made the best start, advancing four positions by the end of lap two. Meanwhile, d'Ambrosio overtook Vergne into turn five. On the third lap, Frijns overtook Heidfeld on the outside for fourth. Heidfeld then locked his rear tyres and ran deep entering turn five, losing further places to Abt, and the e.Dams-Renault duo of Buemi and Prost.