The Cupra Kiro driver is scoreless from the first two races of the new Formula E series, his latest misfortune coming in last weekend’s Mexico race.
On that occasion he was undone by a chain reaction crash at the Turn 5 hairpin that also involved eventual winner Nick Cassidy, Antonio Felix da Costa and Maximilian Guenther.
That followed an earlier incident with da Costa that he claims cost him several positions.
Following the race-ending crash, Ticktum reportedly unloaded on the radio, calling his rivals a “bunch of c***s”.
“They race like petulant children,” he told his engineer. “Honestly, it’s pathetic, then the race director just doesn’t give anyone penalties.
“I’ve had enough. It’s not a category of talent.”
Ticktum then doubled down on that point of view in a video posted to social media after the race.
“I’ve been trying to not hit my head against a wall,” he said.
“I was running P5 or P6 at the time after a good opening few laps, got hit, lost three places – that driver didn’t receive a penalty. I don’t understand how you can be in a world championship when someone just crashes into the back of you and they don’t get a penalty.
“The safety car came out for another incident and then couple laps later there was another incident down in Turn 5 and I was just a victim of it. That was my race over, [because I] had suspension damage.
“And now we need to get onto the hot topic, which is the level of stewarding, or lack of stewarding, in Formula E at the moment. I know we’re not quite F1, but we are branded as a world championship.
“I can’t say too much what happens in driver briefings, but essentially they said from Sao Paulo that they flat out missed things. We’re in a world championship, you can’t be missing things as the FIA – it’s just not good enough.
“People [are] just getting away with far too much and that is just leading to the races being like rental kart hacks.
“People just send moves, hoping for the best, people’s wings off here and there and it’s just chaos.”
Adding to Ticktum’s frustration is that he’s behind his teammate Pepe Marti in the standings, despite Marti crashing spectacularly out of the season-opener in Brazil due to a full-course caution misjudgement, which meant he was off the back of the grid in Mexico.
“I don’t want it to go too far the other way and ruin the racing, but at the moment it’s not right,” he added.
“My teammate scored points, good on him, but to sum up Formula E, or the first two rounds, he obviously had an enormous crash in Sao Paulo and that meant he had to start at the back of the grid and he had a stop-go penalty.
“I’ve qualified second and sixth in the first two races and my teammate is beating me in the championship.
“So you may as well not qualify, chill at the back, wait for everyone to crash into each other, save energy and come through from there. A very frustrating start to the season.”
Discussion about this post