2024 São Paulo E-Prix Debrief

A last-lap pass for the win. 212 overtakes. FIVE different race leaders?!

The #SaoPauloEPrix had it all! Join Saunders CB and Alexa Rendell as they debrief that INSANE race weekend.

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Hello and welcome to the debrief show here Live on YouTube and live from sou Paulo now Alexa let’s just go straight into it because that was a phenomenal race especially at the end what did you make of it I’m not usually one for superlatives this might be my favorite

Formulary race ever I think the excitement in that final lap was just Peak formulary to see the story lines unfolding things that we’ve been wanting to happen for a very long time it was just Absol fantastic we’ve of course got to talk about our race winner today oh

Yeah of course right s bird was just on another level flying as high as ever high as he’s ever flown as sber yeah phenomenal drive from him you know we we have talked quite a bit on digital content about s Bird’s chances coming into this race the Clara Wasing Prett

Dangerous at interior and then knowing his success here or Podium here last season it was all the ingredients were all there I just didn’t think it was going to happen I think we saw the strength of the Jaguar power train when we were here last year they were utterly

Dominant they completely dominated the podium and instead of that this weekend we had a complete change up with s bird and Oliver Roland P1 P3 it was a changing of the guards almost it felt like here in South poo from the pure dominance of Ja to a few more faces

Kicking around yeah I mean I think this has opened the power train argument wide up and just in time as well with the manufacturers trophy introduced that’s a good seg it makes it very very very interesting um let’s just go a get back a bit yes the move

Bird’s last lap move on former teammate Mitch Evans was absolutely phenomenal I think that was pure experience coming through there but sber has been in this Championship basically since day dot and you saw that with him he knew what Mitch was going to do his former teammate he

Could just read that perfectly and read it he did to take himself that Victory I mean yes yeah mean he sued it up perfectly hopefully we’re going to get San bird in the show U live we can um ask him all about it so maybe chance to

Get some questions in if you have anything to ask about Sound Performance so far today because it was an absolute belter yeah and it I must mean a hell of a lot you could hear how much it meant actually on the team radio afterwards I felt a little emotional when I heard His

Radio I was like he’s spoken so publicly about his struggles in the last couple of years things just didn’t work out a Jag for him to see him move to McLaren a team that as a British driver it means so much to him I just thought that it was just fantastic and actually

McLaren’s first win we have to address that huge huge moment huge moment big moment form it feels like even going back to last season this moment has been coming like they have shownin the the one laap pace was there you know Jake Q’s was looking good pretty much from

The start of last season the debut of gen 3 and then slowly but surely things have been getting better and better and it all all it was was alluding them was just that win and S bird has put that to bed you know that they are now a a race

Winning team in Formula re and very much I think bringing the fight to the jaguar and the Porsche Power cast I to ask Sam about this but from my understanding speaking a fewer to the team members they didn’t even seem to expect this coming into today they would been

Absolutely Beyond delighted with a Podium to suddenly get to the end of the race and vp1 I think this is really setting them up for a good run but sber is actually the kind of driver that he needs momentum for Success the more the more momentum he gets the better he gets

I would argue and so to have come off a very good deror a win here could we see some kind of charge going forward with the improvements they’ve made I think so he’s a very emotional driver and when I say that I mean that a good a good win

Can fire him into more momentum a bad can really really set him in a bad bad L he’s having some good days recently he did just say to me on the way back from the press conference I was sharing a a um golf with him he says I feel like my

Tent might have run out like because of how good that was he was like how can I replicate that again no that’s not the emotion we wanted from Sam we want the full chaos okay look at the wider picture though of the race that we just experienced yes s bird great win we’ll

Get on to Mitch Evans and Oliver Rona later and of course the drivers that weren’t so lucky um but the race in general it felt like we were back to Peak Formula E yeah I really enjoyed the Strategic part of the start as well we were a little bit worried about what

That might look like but actually it was super dramatic drivers were still going for those really risky overtakes they wanted the position and they were willing to fight for it they were they were indeed and they did from from lights the flag from lights the flag Oliver Rand talking to him just after

The press conference he was describing some of the moves and how hard they were people were not giving up positions easily um so yeah it was a hardfought battle for anyone that did well today obvious San bird bch Evans Oliver Rand on the podium uh and although we did see

You know Mexico and Dera weren’t bad Races they were very enjoyable like they were different sorts of racing it just wasn’t what we used to with formula re whereas today felt like yeah a snapshot it return to that I don’t want to say chaos because it was Controlled Chaos

Today it was it wasn’t people crashing into each other willy-nilly it was smooth smart strategic racing with a little element of drama and I just speaking of crashing though I want to bring up the fact that our Championship leader Nick Cassy did not finish today’s

Race yes yeah I mean I think he maybe he could have jinxed himself when he said to be on the track walk that he could even D dnf and still be leading the championship he yeah all right he’s s up for that you know when when you say

Things like that you put it out there you have to accept manifested it it yeah I mean obviously what happened to Nick was completely out of his control damage on the car he was a passenger in that incident it’s just great to see that he was he was okay because watching those

Sorts of incidents they they they concern you because you know what happened to bird in Rome last year all it takes is that to bounce out into the circuit uh and you know that that could go a lot worse so good to see that he’s

Um he’s okay um s bird is actually going to join us now run he’s running to us this is how Keeny is to be in the debrief I’m I mean we’re excited to have him here I like this enthusiasm from all our drivers actually run run into our

Interview this is phenomenal you’re Live on YouTube on the debrief show we’ve just been singing your Praises like probably a bit too much but um it’s good I first thing I want to say to you is you must be the happiest man in the paddock Ian James must be the second

Happiest man in the padic would you know who the third is Lany no outside of your team okay I don’t know me oh why do you think that is um cuz sun shining and we get to go what did you what did you say to me when you finished the race uh do

You remember I called it you said you there we go there we go just self humble Brak expect today can I just say I mean starting fifth we had a great fp2 quickest in fp2 we had a decent quality but there are limitations within our car

When it gets hot and it was a tricky quality I was just happy to get through and start P5 and the whole plan um going into the race was like right let’s consolidate a top five MH then during the race I felt really good I felt

Really good and you know what the others they they they made me Le for so long they were like a let’s s be the donkey let’s be the donkey but I felt fine being the donkey it’s been uh 9 years 3 months and 26 days I believe since Putra

Since Putra and your first formulate win that must have been a special moment but I still have hair and you still have but something tells me that this win is just as if not more special well that was my first win in Formula E and

It was a really dominant win today was a very different kind of race for’s grown so much um so it that first win meant a lot um I also dedicated that race I remember I dedic dedicated that one to ja so that one meant a lot a lot um for

Me at the time this one right now it means an awful lot as well first one for neon McLaren after 2 years not in the wilderness I still had four podiums last year but four years of um not getting the results that I quite wanted so to bounce back and get a win

For my new team feels very special go to talk to you about that as well to come and take the win from Mitch Evans in second I knew you guys would read into that I knew you read ask does it make it easier when you’re fighting against

Somebody that you know so well you can you read his style as well going into that last lap there was no thing I’ve got to beat Mitch because I’m no longer there it was I’m racing a guy that I trust I’m racing a guy that I I admire

The wrong word but I completely respect on the racetrack so he gave me the room in order to try and do something a little bit daring and it worked I going to pick up on that because before the race that the idea of overtaking offline was kind of adding a little bit of

Concern you know how possible it was going to be how risky it was going to be that was a pretty daring move to do on the last lap was it easy to do at that point um I could should I play it up and say that it was really you know really a

Mega go God that was a move so good no it’s um you said it was the best move of all time it was maybe it was yeah Mah hacken and move over yeah another McLaren great um yeah oh and we’ve been supported this weekend by emson FAL how

Cool is that we’ve had McLaren World Champ and he was delighted in fact he called that ground from the podium how cool is that that’s really cool so yeah that’s special um I hope my 720 is in the post just same he just getting straight in there just finally before we let you

Crack on with your day because I know you’ve got some celebrating to do can you just tell us what you think this means now for the Nissan powered power trains because I know you said it’s early days but it this must give you the confidence that there is a fight there

To be had I think it’s the realization that the work that we’re doing we are going in the right direction so it’s like right if we’ve done that let’s work harder let’s go a bit more what can we do how can we how can we improve a bit

More how can we get that efficiency better how can we do this how can we do this so it’s it’s a little bit of fuel to the fire let’s try and get it going and you know see if we can make any more progress well Mega job huge congrats and

Enjoy the celebration Sam Legend you have several on us he’s won a race he got a Bonus he can play for his own drinks oh yeah good point just going to have a look are we playing a little highlights yeah going to the VT this is this is live this is

Live how it works you know okay well we know what happened with the the person that won the race Sam bird should we have a little look about what happened with the person that came second his old teammate Mitch Evans Mitch Evans and Sam bird having a

Chat about finishing both in the podium I’m sure slightly bitter we yourself MIT yeah massively um it’s a it’s a hard one to accept when you’re um I feel like we did all the right steps but unfortunately on the last laep I had a battery drate through through

Temperature so I had um yeah not much uh not much top speed um and it was getting worse throughout the lab so I knew it was going to be tight um I had enough energy to basically go flat to the Finish but um yeah just just really

Disappointing cuz I feel like we did all the all the right steps and these races really hard to manage but is what it is but um on the other hand I’m really happy for Sam he’s had a tough few seasons and to see him uh get a get a

Win again especially in his new colors he looks good in orange so um yeah I am I’m super happy for him but uh look it’s good points to me I would have I would have taken second coming into this weekend just in terms of my Championship Championship position but um the win was

Right there but uh yeah not today just a quick one he also felt you were very fair at the end there you could have pushed him wide you could have throw your toys out the pram you didn’t do that you did the right thing yeah I mean

Look he had a good overlap but also I just had no no no power so he would have got me to the line anyway so I was um I was just bit of a Sitting Duck so um yeah when the D comes in it comes in really aggressively and you lose power

Very quickly so um I think a lot of a lot of the field did suffer from that but obviously the two n and power trains were were really strong with that so uh yeah something for us to work on but um we did it all we could um but we just

Came up short today another Podium while I make next everything that Mitch was telling us just then were of course joined by the one and only Championship journalist Katy fman Katie you’re here to give us the GS give us the Intel a really strong Drive from Mitch today but he was just

Undone by a Moment of Brilliance from Sam I’d argue I agree I mean I feel like the fact that this is his first Podium of the season has been a little bit overshadowed by that last lap pass from Sam um but there’ll be definitely you know confidence points on the board

Naturally will be a bit disappointed with it um but yeah I think it was a fantastic drive from him obviously we had the whole Energy Management not really wanting to be to in front so he was letting Sam doing let Sam do a lot of the leading um but yeah overall a

Great Drive and he should be very pleased with a second place but we know what racing drivers are like and he wanted that win yeah bit of sweet he said in the press conference um it’s inter you mentioned it a bit there about the challenges of this circuit one of

Which being battery temperature and you know they use the firm DG quite a lot which essentially just means they are having to underc consume because the battery is saying you can’t hit your targets you need to chill out because I need to chill out I’m a hot battery

That’s essentially what it’s saying it says that in words on the dash by the way in case you’re wondering doesn’t it just says DG but yeah what it means is Mitch having to basically underc consume for a lot of the the latest stages of the race so not to take anything away

From Sam cuz we just spent 10 minutes amping him up but um I yeah on another day maybe slightly cooler temperature Mitch isn’t having to lift as much he’s not having to underc consume as much maybe that move that s did doesn’t happen um but still yeah like you said

Got to be proud of himself good drive well I was listening to S bir’s radio on the Formula E app amazing thing by the way like yeah but I’m obsessed with it I’m like cing through every driver I want all the gossip yeah and Sam was also being told mate like calm down

Almost like don’t go for any crazy moves you haven’t got the energy your car’s far too hot and we saw Jake Hughes having to retire at the end there I’m wondering if that could be potentially related to this hot temperat it was yeah so you know everyone is struggling with

It but I’m just amazed after listening to this radio of them being like Sam Cal calm down chill out and then going for that move but like you say he can read Mitch really well he could tell that he was lifting at certain points on the

Laps and so yeah deci decided to go for it but I was thinking oh my gosh is it going to run out of energy is the car just going to suddenly stop because we’ve seen it in like Sebastian buy I think in payia season 2 um his car

Battery got way too hot and he ended up having to stop the race so imagine that if like Sam or Mitch just didn’t finish a few corners from the end of the race yeah I mean here as well it was so interesting this is just to kind of

Explain what we saw it’s when you’re managing your your battery and you your strategy is to kind of optimize a a a plan that means you’re saving earlier and you’re going to push at the end so you’re leaving more in your battery to use in the lat stages of the race and

Your temperature goes to the point where you’re flirting with the the whole car breaking down you can’t use that energy that you’ve saved so one but first but the first bad thing is that you’re potentially in a detrimental position because you can’t overtake because you’re having to call the battery you

Don’t get to use your energy and the second is you overheat it too much by trying to push that the whole car breaks down yeah very much so to contend with like a Russian Roulette almost of yeah what’s going to happen happen to put a positive spin on Mitch’s day it is his

First Podium of the Season he’s outperformed Nick Cassidy for the first time this season I think that’s going to mean a lot to him and that Championship charge that ultimately he is still going to want to be on this year very much so I mean crazy start from last year

Mitch’s first podium in season 9 was here which was round six and yet he still was a championship Contender so like don’t write him off because he hasn’t been in the podium in the first three rounds like very much so so yeah I think he’ll be happy with that obviously

Like you said bit of sweet as well for the team with Cassidy having to retire but overall a great day for Mitch points on the board bit of silver we for the trophy cabin it never hurt anyone a great day for Jag as well know we’re now

Looking at four races for Jag podiums yeah you know that’s great for that that team’s title they’ve been hunting for for season after season after season coming so close yet so far it seems um and now thing is that’s what they want but they’ve got the likes of Nissan

Creeping up Nissan now three podium car in Four races this their first ever double power train Podium as well which I like so that’s a nice stat and the same thing with the four different winners in four different races and say four different manufacturers like it is

Just amazing to see how this is all working itself out and I know Nick cassid has been a record to say that there’s genuinely like 16 people up and down this padic that could win a race or be on the podium so oh I just love it

I’m so excited so next up we need to talk about third place Oliver Roland yes the other Nissan power car the Nissan itself but before we do that let’s see what he had to say for himself after the race and how he got into that position to get a

Podium Mitch Chans Mitch Chans and S bird having a two successive podiums for the man from Barnsley p 11 to the podium how was that you w yeah it was crazy the race I mean there was so much to manage in terms of temperatures the racing which was super difficult where you

Where to place yourself but um we did a good job on strategy we stayed quite patient um I managed to do well in the beginning to get up to seventh and honestly when I was there I was quite happy to score some points but um the

Car was really good I could carry good speed in the corners and we had a we had a good strategy and all the temperatures under control and I think you saw that at the end and talking about the end the mega switch back on the final Corner

Fifth to third what was going through your mind then because commentary we talking about that’s the old carting and old school move yeah I’d done it once earlier in the race there was a couple that got into each other in the last corner and when I saw how aggressive

They were pushing each other wide out of 10 I knew that the guy on the outside was going to go in and then they were made made the corner so tight so it was easy in the end but uh yeah I guess it’s all a bit of all Caron Ollie it’s great

To have you back keep doing what you’re doing because you’re doing it very well thank you very much was just being in a good position and pushing just to make capitalize anything like that happening in front of you I mean I actually want to go back

And look at that replay of Jake Dennis and Pascal verine those guys were going at it they were really not give themselves an easy run um but Oliver Roland capitalized to get on the podium his second podium in a row the boy from Barnsley doing good it reminds me a lot

Of the Sam B story almost that when Sam moved to McLaren a lot of people questioned it people have kind of written him off he’s been around formulary for a while why is he going to McLaren when he’s had a tough few years the same thing with Oliver Roland he had

A tough couple of Seasons with Mahindra even didn’t even finish the season last year because he made the executive decision that I want to focus on my future and that clearly is paying off for him to come back in to have two backto back podiums withan he’s proving

To people that he’s still got it very much so yeah I mean he’s new into a team as well obviously he’s worked with Nissan previously in the past but Sasha fenstra did his rookie year there last year knows all the staff so well and they’ve had so many personnel changes at

That team since Oliver Roland was there and so yeah the fact that he’s come in and he’s kind of almost asserting himself as the alpha with these two podiums in a row and I’m sure the team have got everything cross that they can replicate that again in Tokyo home race

Coming up next like imagine the scenes if you’re getting thisan on the podium there it would be incredible I mean to go into a race like that with momentum like they’ve got that’s great promising we haven’t actually mentioned where he started the race Yes actually incredible

11 to the podium you know and that it wasn’t easy to overtake especially some of the people he was having to overtake the likes of jeev a defensive driving master um he did it he also got a cheeky one by overtaking his some of his former teammates as well with Eduardo marara

Which he was very pleased about he actually summed it up really well in the press conference he didn’t realize that a Podium was possible right and by the time he climbed up to about 8th or sth he already felt like it was Christmas oh and I didn’t think he much more was

Going to be as he just kept going he kept being able to push kept able to push being in the right place made it stick and he walks away with another Podium yeah well on the aded lap show that went out a few weeks ago Jake Dennis spoke about the efficiency of

That n and power train and that he was he was nervous about how good it was going to be coming forward today I think he kind of saw that first hand when he got beaten to a Podium by the Nissan power train is this a changing of the

Tide in terms of the manufacturer oh trophy going forward could we’ve seen Miss and McLaren starting to take the Forefront here yeah I hope so yeah me too tease it too much than anyone but I just hope that there’s a there’s a more players in the game you know yeah very

Much so yeah I mean like jaguar I think have been the early favorites so far I know that we’ve had the likes of Pascal Vine winning in Mexico and Jake Dennis winning in Dara but they’ve sort of bubbling away as the favorit but like you say I think give it time and we

Could see a lot of different people coming up and challenging for those wins and yeah I feel like McLaren and Nissan have just taken that massive step forward in software and things like that because obviously the homologation with the cars and the Gen 3 cars they can’t update much but this obviously the

Software package and the communication the two teams are having is working wonders we we set it up didn’t we the three of us in the pit Lane preview at the start of the the race week thinking that has this two powert train race become a three or four power train race

You it and I think the answer is yes right and even more so because of the likes of maximilan Gunter honestly got to give him a shout out what a drive I I’m not sure where it was P9 at the end of the race but I don’t know there was a

Couple of potential incident where he locked up and went off I don’t know if that’s going to be looked at by the FAA but let’s say it’s P9 for now back of the grid to P9 massively help by the safety cars what a drive back at the

Grid and a 10-c stop and go penalty the man just was on a mad one today but we’ve been talking about everything we’ve been looking ahead a little bit how about we take some fan questions and actually have a think because the first fine question that keeps coming up is

Tell us about Tokyo what have we got coming up what have we got coming up we’ve got an excellent circuit in the in the heart of Tokyo a new location for Formula E and I think 22 very excited drivers as well as everybody in the

Padic excited to go to Tok it yeah we were talking to Jake Dennis on the added lap and he was saying that he’s done some simulator work and that yeah the the bumps as well are going to be pretty intense I think it’s going to be fairly

Similar to the Circuit that we’ve seen here of like a proper old school Formula E style track that’s not super Polished in Perfection it’s a bit Rough and Ready but actually they’re the kind of tracks that throw up chaos like this so I’m I’m buzzing yeah the next question was how

Hot is it in Brazil and if you can’t tell by the color of our faces pretty pretty hot I think I was walking to the podium earlier and I saw a sign that said it was 39° today hey credit to the drivers where it’s du that was a tough

One out there yeah it’s very warm it’s OB a lot of concrete a lot of toac here that just reflects the heat back up into your face um I’m not designed for this weather yeah too British for this we really are we got time for one more

Question we do have for one more perfect what was the biggest surprise for you guys today but you on the spot do you want to go first Casey I’m going to say San bird winning the race I know it’s quite an obvious one but when he was running at

The front like one of the biggest talking points going into this was it’s a bad thing to be at the front because you’re using so much energy everyone else behind you is able to slip stream and save on that energy and so he was out there and so

Vulnerable at the front for so long I thought well there’s no way he’s going to win this maybe a third place at best but he played the game perfectly so I’m going to go with sber it’s a great shout I’d like to say Oliver Roland but I just

Feel like he’s been he’s been cooking for this and now he’s here he’s bre away he’s been Bruin and that you know now he’s T tasting the benefit of a delicious coffee but um in terms of surprises Max gter let’s go with that because that you I didn’t think he’d

Have all the penalties but the way he responded unbelievable think that’s last we’ve got time for from the fan questions thank you very much casy as always for joining us for your amazing Insight we have seen an incredible race here for round four of season 10 of the

ABB faia Formula E world championship and in just a few weeks we go to Tokyo for the first time to do it all again it’s going to be a good one guys final thoughts from you bring it on get me an ice Lolly get you an ice L I’m so hot on

That see you next time it’s round four of the ab FIA fery World Championship coming to you from the streets of sou Paulo time for aamb as we go racing Bine lead at M trying to come through on the right hand side s bird now up to P2 so

Bird leads the way then fora front wi going and missing there grassy getting a big whack up the backs side let’s get him let’s get him the wheels are off the wagon quite literally Nick Cassidy who’s gone into the wall is out for a mitch Evans in the Jaguar takes the lead’s

Done it abs absolutely amazing from s there’s l in the old