Nick Heidfeld looked to be on the road to recovery with a P4 qualifying position in Berlin, although he struggled to hold on to that place once the race got underway.

“It started quite well when I overtook Jarno and pushed Buemi quite hard,” Heidfeld told Current E’s Naomi Panter. “Then I had to look a bit more after my power levels in the first stint and struggled a bit more on the second. I started to get more understeer for some reason.”

The Venturi driver has generally been more efficient with energy use than others, meaning he’s able to mount a strong second part of the race. That’s not something that Heidfeld found he could replicate in Berlin, however: “The second problem was that I was not as good on energy management as on the last couple of races. Usually we are one of the best. This time I had to save a lot of energy at the end which is why people started to overtake me.”

The team had looked to have made significant progress with the German driver qualifying in P4, but he wasn’t able to hold on the position. He finished the event in P6, which was improved to P5 when race winner Lucas di Grassi was subsequently disqualified.

“Race pace was not a step forward but I think we learned something,” he said. “I’m quite hopeful that we learned a lot this Saturday and probably why we were better in quali than in the race. Hopefully we will put it together in the next race.”

Berlin turned into a decent points haul for Venturi, with both drivers in the top 10. The revised result has moved the team to within 12 points Amlin Aguri, which sits in eighth place in the team standings, and 14 points of Mahindra, which is seventh.

Of the track, Heidfeld commented: “I liked the circuit a lot. It was challenging because it was unique, not only from the layout but also because the surface was different and was giving the Michelin tyres a much harder time. They coped very well, no issue but it was the first time that we had quite some wear on the tyres so this made it interesting.”