Having made the semi-final of the NEOM Island X Prix II (round 2), Emma Gilmour and Tanner Foust (NEOM McLaren) have failed to break through to the final of the latest Extreme E round.
X44 secured victory in Semi-Final 2 to seal their spot in the Final, with ABT CUPRA XE joining them after an impressive drive to hold off NEOM McLaren Extreme E.
“We’re really happy with our bounce back for Round 3,” commented Gilmour. “Tanner and I pushed to repay the efforts of the team’s hard work rebuilding the car to get us to qualifying yesterday. It was great to qualify in P3, it’s a really competitive field and we showed that we’ve got the pace to be here on our first visit as a team.
“So we just have to focus forward now. It was really disappointing not to get through to the Final, I knew I had the pace to be able to hand over to Tanner in a good position, but I just couldn’t cleanly get past. I was able to get the car back in one piece and hand it to Tanner, but unfortunately it was too big of a gap for him to chase down.
“It’s positive for us heading to Chile, because we’ve shown how hard we can fight when other teams have an advantage at a track they’ve already raced on, and we’re right there with them. Bring on Chile.”
X44’s Cristina Gutierrez got a storming start to snatch the lead for Lewis Hamilton’s outfit which they never surrendered, pulling away from their rivals ABT CUPRA XE and NEOM McLaren Extreme E as they squabbled for a Final spot in Sardinia.
It was a tense duel between ABT CUPRA XE’s Jutta Kleinschmidt and NEOM McLaren XE’s Emma Gilmour, with the former defending her second place impeccably to keep the latter at bay.
The order was maintained as the trio entered the Switch Zone, with ABT CUPRA XE managing to extend their gap to NEOM McLaren XE after the driver switch.
Despite nursing a technical issue, X44’s Sebastien Loeb retained the lead while being chased ferociously by the charging ABT CUPRA XE of Nasser Al-Attiyah.
Despite closing the gap to the leader, and pulling away from NEOM McLaren XE’s Tanner Foust in third, the Qatari couldn’t get close enough to attempt an overtake for first and had to settle for second, ensuring ABT CUPRA XE join X44 in the NEOM Island X Prix II Final, co-organised by the Automobile Club d’Italia and Regione Sardegna.
Genesys Andretti United Extreme E won a thrilling Crazy Race to take the fifth spot in the NEOM Island X Prix Final II.
In the final, Rosberg X Racing (RXR) took the win with a late overtake to secure their second victory the season. X44 finished second and Genesys Andretti United Extreme E third after ABT CUPRA XE were disqualified following a safety infringement.
Results – Semi-Final 2
1/ X44 9:18:618
2/ ABT CUPRA XE +4.008
3/ NEOM McLaren XE +19.453
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