Driot still fuming over Buemi's forced absence in New York

The Formula E Championship remains up for grabs heading into this weekend's double-header finale on the streets of Montreal, all the more because Sebastien Buemi – who dominated the bulk of the 2016-'17 season for the Renault e.dams team, winning six of the first eight races – was forced to miss the double-header round in New York City. Buemi was obliged to stand down due to his commitment to the Toyota LMP1 team in the World Endurance Championship, whose Nurburgring round ran on the same weekend as the New York ePrix.

As a result, Buemi's title rival Lucas Di Grassi has whittled Buemi's once-substantial championship lead down to 10 points ahead of the Montreal races – and Renault   e.dams co-owner Jean-Paul Driot admitted he remains extremely frustrated by the inability of the two series to coordinate their schedules better.

"It's more than frustrating, because I don't understand how it can happen. We are both FIA championships, and this is something that shouldn't happen," declared Driot (pictured above, with Buemi). "And on top of that we knew it from a long time ago and I am really upset that no solution was found."

Driot related that the team had gone to considerable lengths to try to get its driver into the New York events despite his commitments on the other side of the Atlantic.

"Logistically, we had found a way of him qualifying at Nurburgring on Friday morning, catching a plane at Frankfurt to come to New York on Friday night. He would have arrived at a decent time – 9:30 p.m. or something – and then do the Saturday full day and then fly back straight from New York, have a first class ticket to sleep very well on the plane, and arrive in Frankfurt at about nine in the morning and if necessary catch a helicopter to get to the Nurburgring to be ready in the car for the Sunday afternoon race. Logistically it was perfectly feasible.

"We tried to discuss with Toyota and they were very concerned that if by any bad luck he was having a crash, people would have thought it was because he was tired and so difficult to explain. My view of that a driver is a human being. First of all he is very fit, he's very young – I have spent [many] nights in planes for 40 years and when you travel in good conditions, the trip was very feasible.

"I agree that he has a contract with Toyota and I don't deny they are totally entitled to take their decision, but I think that when you have a driver that is leading the championship, psychologically it's quite tough to swallow. This was their decision and I'm not contesting it, but the conclusion is that it should not have happened at all."

Although Buemi still has the inside line to retain his FE title this weekend, thanks to the DS Virgin team's Sam Bird winning both New York races (pictured above) and Di Grassi managing only fourth- and fifth-place finishes, Driot noted that the rising competitiveness of other teams besides Di Grassi's Abt Schaeffler AudiSport operation is keeping his squad on its toes.

"Before, we had a good advantage with the car. But now when you see the results, DS Virgin is there, Mahindra is there, ABT is there, some others are coming from time to time and I always said it would be very difficult. Racing is racing, you don't take your calculator and say I'm doing to do that that and that. It doesn't exist. So until the chequered flag at the end of the year anything can happen one way or the other.