Michela Cerruti faces tough luck in Putrajaya Formula E round

The second round of the FIA Formula E championship turned out to be a particularly tough one for Michela Cerruti. The Italian female racer was back with Team Trulli on the Putrajaya street circuit, located in the federal administrative centre of Malaysia, just south of Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately for her, the outcome of the round was conditioned by several events that went beyond her control.

After having lost some really valuable tracktime in practice, Michela tried to recover as much ground as she could in qualify and managed to clinch the 14th spot on the grid. Unfortunately, after a strong start of the race, she was hit by a rival car and ended up with an early retirement.

The next round for the 2014-2015 Formula E schedule will be in early December in Punta del Este, Uruguay, but both Michela and team-mate / Team Principal Jarno Trulli will be providing a series of demo runs at the traditional Motor Show event in Bologna.

Michela Cerruti: "This weekend didn't unfold positively for me. In practice I managed to complete a race simulation but, after switching to the Full Power mode that enables to cut laptimes dramatically for qualifying, I lost a wheel. So in qualifying I did all I could to limit the damage and in the end didn't go too bad. The team was happy with the results.

During the race, after a good start, I was hit by Katherine Legge, who had lost her car under braking in turn 7. After making my way back to the pits, I jumped on the second car even though we knew that we couldn't have made it to the end on power. But soon a throttle jamming issue parked us once again and for good.

"The problem here in Formula E is that there's very little time available, especially when you have to recover. If something doesn't work, you pay an high price. Also, in this round the one-day program was shortened even further due to the danger of torrential rains. We woke up at 5:30 AM and I believe that I never got on-track so early in the morning! After Putrajaya, we will be up for some demo runs at the popular Motor Show of Bologna right before taking-off for round three which is scheduled for December 13th in Punta del Este, Uruguay".

Michela Cerruti