Envision’s Sylvain Filippi has refuted insinuations that its directive to slow Sebastien Buemi when in second place in Saturday’s Tokyo EPrix, was a ploy to assist its manufacturer supplier Jaguar in its title fight with Porsche.
Pascal Wehrlein and his Porsche team principal, Florian Modlinger, made strong post-race suggestions that Envision deliberately slowed up Buemi to meddle with Porsche’s progress at a crucial part of the race when the PitBoost window had opened.
Modlinger told The Race that there would be a potential re-calibration of the spirit in which races were fought in the remaining three races now, saying that “it is another game now, because I think on Jaguar’s side there were changes in the management and in the past we used to fight really fair until the end of the championship.”
That appeared to be a direct barb at Ian James, the team principal at Jaguar TCS Racing, who replaced James Barclay at the team last autumn.
“Maybe we need to re-think now the approach, as what we saw today, and what’s happening in this field, and which role customer teams could play, we will reshuffle and try to fight back hard tomorrow,” added a clearly irate Modlinger.
While not replying directly to Modlinger’s opinion on the manner in which the races played out and pivoted for Wehrlein and da Costa via the Buemi reduction of pace, Envision’s Sylvain Filippi told The Race that he thought suggestions that Envision working in conjunction with Jaguar at that stage of the race were false.
“That is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard, which I think they’ve come around to now,” said Filippi.
“Someone has to explain to me why that would impact Porsche more than others and help Jaguar more than others?”
“I’d love someone to explain because It absolutely does not help Jaguar in any way to do that, and if we did, that’s the irony (da Costa’s delay in the Wehrlein incident).”
Filippi backed up driver Buemi’s comments to The Race that the plan had been to assist teammate Joel Eriksson’s race strategy to maximise his track position at that stage of the EPrix.
“Firstly, if we wanted to help Jaguar, we could, but we don’t, because we race independently and we work together to make the car fast, but we race independently,” detailed Fillipi.
“And then secondly, explain to me how Jaguar is helped more than others in that situation?
“It was a double benefit for us and frankly, this is a no-brainer, because we made that decision when Seb was not great on energy, had the five-second penalty, so absolutely no point doing the strategy of staying where you are.
“It made a lot of sense to use that attack mode, get in front of everybody when no one really would take it, so at least you’re going to get a very good usage of attack modes.
“So, get to the front, and you never know, there could be rain, there could be a red flag, there could be all sorts of things, and then you’re at the front. It helped Joel’s undercut, and he made a lot of places.”
Jaguar team principal, Ian James, mostly backed up Fillipi’s sentiments but did also reference the fact that Buemi’s five-second penalty should have been taken into account more by his own team in light of the overall picture of the race, one in which da Costa believed he could have won.
“It’s something that we can look at how we manage such situations going forward,” James told The Race.
“And depending on how the FIA apply and decide to make sure that the sporting equities are kept intact. But again, it’s something that you learn from, and we’ll speak very openly about it, and then decide how we progress.”
Da Costa was initially angry with the incident, in which he was forced off the track by Wehrlein, a clash that resulted in the Porsche driver served a 10-second penalty, despite having vacated his cockpit for several minutes while his suspension was repaired and he re-joined the fray.
Da Costa vented to The Race on Saturday evening, while Wehrlein and Buemi also gave their opinions on the incident.
The Jaguar driver was seen to be in animated conversation with both Buemi and Filippi immediately after the race and was known to have been furious with both Envision and his own team for not communicating to him the overall picture of Envision’s strategic plans.
But Filippi added that the team “don’t communicate strategy during the race” because “it’s impossible”
“Even if you wanted to at this stage, it’s so fluid and there’s so much happening that you cannot update the team on what you’re thinking every minute, so It’s just not realistic,” added Filippi.
“I’m sorry, but it’s clearly on Porsche and Wehrlein who basically messed it up. There was absolutely no need and no reason for it, and they got the penalty for it, and it’s clear. It’s completely clear.
“For Antonio, I’m really sorry for him as it’s a really unfortunate indirect consequence, but obviously not our intention.”
