Formula E championship leader Nelson Piquet Jr believes track position was crucial to his win in the Moscow ePrix.
The NEXTEV TCR driver took his second win of the season around the streets of Moscow on Saturday, to extend his lead in the drivers’ standings to 17 points ahead of Lucas di Grassi.
Piquet said: “We knew it would be an important race for us after, I would say, not a very strong performance in Berlin. I think if I hadn’t qualified on the front it would have been close to impossible to win the race.
“Track position was very hard, you could see there was not much action in the back of the race, so I am glad I qualified very well, and had a great start.”
Having pitted a lap sooner than the other challengers, Piquet Jr was left vulnerable to a late surge by rival Lucas di Grassi, but insisted that the team had everything under control.
“Being the leader you are just playing a different game,” he said. “When you are playing catch you have to play a different kind of strategy and obviously Lucas probably used a lot of his energy or battery temperature for the second part of the race.
“I probably tried to use it at the beginning to try to get a gap, so I think at the end he ended up catching up. We still had a little margin if we had to push at the end we still could push.”
The result means he is only the second driver after e.dams-Renault’s Sebastien Buemi to win more than one race, and goes into the final two races in London with a points advantage.
The Brazilian added: “You always want to start the last weekend of the season with a points lead – it’s always a benefit, it always helps you.
“We have been always qualifying well, and have a great race pace so there are no secrets. We have to work really well to be extra prepared for London but the team knows what they are doing, and I think we just need to keep in the same rhythm and same work ethic and we will be ready.”