Stoffel Vandoorne:
“What an incredible race! I’m ecstatic at having just taken my maiden win in Formula E. Sébastien (Buemi) was always close, but we had him under control. To finish our first season with a one-two win is simply fantastic, and we couldn't have asked for more. Second place in the drivers' standings is a nice bonus for me. We knew that our race pace was good, as we've shown here in previous races. But to win the race from the front really feels very special. Many thanks to the entire team for their terrific work. We had a few difficulties in qualifying during this final week, but everything went perfectly today. I felt really confident about the car, posted good laps in qualifying and am mega happy with my race. Looking from the outside in, you might perhaps think, well, that was pretty straightforward, but believe me, it was hard work! We started the season with two unexpected podium finishes and then experienced a series of ups and downs. We were not always able to fully exploit our potential and got a bit unlucky at times. Still, we were rewarded today for the team’s tireless efforts but have still got a lot of work ahead of us in order to go on improving next year.”
Nyck de Vries:
“Phew! What a relief! All the pressure just melted away once I’d crossed the finish line. On previous occasions, I’ve often got close to finishing on the podium, but unfortunately, it just never happened for me, so it feels really good to have finally succeeded to conclude this long and gruelling marathon. We did well with energy management, and I was able to keep closing on Stoffel towards the end of the race. Our strategy paid off in this instance. Overtaking is harder on this track layout than on the first two that we raced on, which is why we thought we could see a chance of finishing second, and luckily, our plan worked out. I wasn't completely free of error this week, so it feels really great to hit back with such an amazing race today. The season was a little bit of a roller-coaster for me, so it's nice to end it with my first podium, our first one-two win and P3 in the team championship. I think we really deserved this result and I'm very pleased for the whole team. We couldn't have wished for a better end to our season before this final round kicked off.”
Ian James, Team Principal:
“What a phenomenal result at the end of a very unique event. Huge congratulations to Stoffel for his first win. What’s more than we can finally celebrate the first ever fully-electric race win for Mercedes-Benz Motorsports. Also huge congratulations as well for Nyck for securing P2. These combined efforts pushed us to P3 in the Team Championship and Stoffel even clinched P2 in the Driver Championship. After all the hard work and trials and tribulations of the last days, a fantastic result.
Finishing P1 and P2 today is something that the team have worked hard for and they absolutely deserve it.
We now look forward to getting Season 7 underway. There’s a lot of hard work ahead of us before then but we’ve also learned a huge amount through the ups and downs we had during Season 6. I’d like to add my congratulations once again to DS Techeetah for the Team Championship and of course to Antonio Felix da Costa for the Driver Championship.”
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport:
“Formula E is a tough and very competitive race series. The format makes it hard for any team to deliver consistent performances from weekend to weekend - and that challenge is bigger for a team in its first season.
We came into this year with our feet on the ground - and the target of improving from weekend to weekend, and delivering a solid performance in the championship. The team had a few reality checks along the way, and learned some painful lessons. But I think we made good on the target of continuous improvement, and the performance in this final round confirmed that, with a one-two finish for Stoffel and Nyck.
Overall, we can be satisfied with how we finished our season and our final championship positions. But it’s also clear that our target will be to take a step forward for Season 7 to close the gap to the front. Finally, congratulations to DS Techeetah and Antonio Felix da Costa on their championship success: this season, they set the benchmark that everybody is aiming for.”
