CUPRA Kiro’s Dan Ticktum rued what he felt was a lost podium on Saturday afternoon at Berlin Tempelhof when an unspecified electrical connection issue that sporadically cut power on his Porsche ruined a hitherto strong race.
Ticktum, who has suffered a variety of ill-fortune in several races this season, finished un-classified after his team elected to pit him on the penultimate lap as the issue was intermittent. The result meant that he was overtaken by teammate Pepe Marti, who came in seventh place to take his fifth points score from his first seven races in Formula E.
“It was a guaranteed podium as I’d come out a net second and made a few places in the pit boost (stop) and everything was done right,” a frustrated Ticktum told Formula E Notebook after the race.
“It was an electrical fault, but something wasn’t happening and it would just cut power and then I’d have to clear it and then it would come back.
“It probably happened, I don’t know, 15 times or something, and the first couple of times when I lost the most time was because when you have a fault like that, you’re supposed to report it first and the team say ‘oh, clear it’ I waited for a couple of seconds and just cleared it anyway.
“But it kept happening, it was happening in the middle of the corners, and it was happening a lot around that middle phase just after the Pit Boost.”
Despite a strong position, Ticktum was far from happy with the performance of his car, saying that
It was “not good” and that the traction was “really shit, it’s probably the worst on the grid, or one of. I can’t get anywhere near people, and I’ve got everyone on my arse.
“It’s very stressful to drive in the races, but we’re still managing energy well. Like I say, it was the same or up (on energy) on most people in the top ten.”
Ticktum and the CUPRA Kiro team structured the race well and were able to save good energy before the issues kicked in, with the British driver adding that he didn’t make the mistake of last year of “trying to stay up front, save some good energy and, another race with stuff out of my control.”
On the wider picture of his campaign as a whole Ticktum was downbeat, saying that the season was “pretty much finished. Some people come back and win a lot of races in the latter phase of the season, but we haven’t got a package that’s good enough to mount a comeback of that nature.
“So, we’ve got a package that’s good enough to win the odd race, but in terms of coming through and finishing in the top three of the championship with the amount of points I’ve lost I’d say is unlikely.”
How Ticktum dealt with frustration
Dealing with the disappointment of the issues that cost him potentially a first appearance on a Formula E podium since he won the Jakarta EPrix almost a year ago, Ticktum had outlined his plans even before he alighted from his Porsche.
“Please no one try and persuade me to stay in the paddock when I come in,” he warned his engineer Mike Henderson as the issue intensified.
He followed that up on the radio with “It’s just so boring, mate. We’ve all done our job. And it’s some electrical f****** fault. It’s like there’s someone going ‘oh, he’s doing too well in this race, let’s fuck him over!’
Speaking to FEN after returning to the track for his media duties, Ticktum added that exiting the track was “the best thing to do. I don’t want to be surly with people and I’m not here to blame people, I’m not going to blame anyone. It’s obviously probably someone’s fault but it’s certainly not my engineer or my performance engineer, so it’s better in these scenarios if I just remove myself from the situation.
“We know what we want to do for tomorrow, we’ve already spoken about it, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s better than me just f****** negging* everybody out, so I just sat in the car and chilled for a bit.”
* Negging is a manipulative dating tactic where someone gives backhanded compliments or subtle insults to undermine a person’s confidence, aiming to make them seek the manipulator’s approval. Originally from “pickup artist” culture, it is a form of emotional manipulation disguised as teasing or humor
