After a thrilling duel against pole-sitter Jake Dennis, Lucas di Grassi wins Sunday’s Formula E race in London: match point for Vandoorne
Lucas di Grassi (Venturi) won the second race of the 2022 Formula E World Championship London E-Prix on Sunday. The Brazilian beat pole-sitter and Saturday’s winner Jake Dennis (Andretti) in a race that was both exciting and tactical.
For di Grassi, it was his first win since switching to Venturi and the 13th of his Formula E career, equalling the previous record winner Sebastien Buemi. Dennis finished second ahead of Mercedes driver Nyck de Vries.
In the battle for the championship, a preliminary decision was made in favour of Stoffel Vandoorne (Mercedes) on Sunday, who benefited from a technical problem of his first pursuer Mitch Evans (Jaguar), who, lying in fourth place, first rolled out without propulsion three laps before the end of the race and then had to park his car in the pits.
Technical drama from Evans gives Vandoorne match point
As a result, Vandoorne, who had started from row seven with Evans and, like the New Zealander, had shown a strong recovery, inherited fourth place and significantly extended his World Championship lead. Before the last two races of the season, the Belgian has a 36-point lead over Evans.
After today’s triumph, di Grassi’s anger at yesterday’s penalty after qualifying had faded. “This win means a lot to me after what happened yesterday,” he told ‘ran.de’. “We were very fast all weekend. The team gave me a strong car and I got the job done. “
Di Grassi and Dennis were the dominant drivers on Sunday. After the start, pole-sitter Dennis maintained the lead ahead of di Grassi, who started from second position, but the Brazilian could not be shaken off. Due to the activation of today’s three attack modes, the lead changed back and forth several times.
Attack mode decides in the battle for victory
The preliminary decision then came on lap 27 when Dennis activated the extra power for the third time. As a result, he fell behind di Grassi and subsequently found no way past. On the contrary: Di Grassi was even able to pull away a bit because Dennis had used more energy and could not fully use the attack mode. Instead, Dennis had to defend himself against de Vries in the end.
The podium of the day:
@LucasdiGrassi
@JakeDennis19
@nyckdevries LondonEPrix MichelinFormulaE ⚡️ ABBFormulaE pic. twitter.com/becHl0OOGR– Michelin Motorsport (@Michelin_Sport) July 31, 2022
Behind them, technology got involved in the race for the championship. After Edoardo Mortara (Venturi) and Jean-Eric Vergne (DS-Techeetah) ended a disastrous London weekend with a retirement, the defect devil also struck Evans, giving Vandoorne at least one match point at the season finale in Seoul.
Antonio Felix da Costa (DS-Techeetah) finished fifth ahead of Sebastien Buemi (Nissan-e.dams). Robin Frijns (Envision), Sam Bird (Jagaur), Sergio Sette Camara (Dragon-Pensek) and Pascal Wehrlein (Porsche) completed the top 10, with Wehrlein’s teammate Andre Lotterer missing out on the points in 12th.
Goiovinazzi’s strong performance not rewarded
An unlucky driver of the race was also Antonio Giovinazzi (Dragon-Penske). After the Italian had achieved by far the best result of his Formula E career so far in qualifying with third position, he was on course for a top five finish at the start of the race – until he received a drive-through penalty because his car had called up too much power. Giovinazzi later parked his car.
Maximilian Günther (Nissan-e.dams) missed out on the points after an unscheduled repair stop in 15th. The German had been forced off the track by Oliver Askew (Andretti) at the exit of turn 16 on lap 8. The contact with the track barrier damaged the front wing, shortly afterwards Günther had to pit to change the car’s nose.
In the drivers’ championship, as already mentioned, Vandoorne leads with 185 points two races before the end of the season. Evans (149) and Mortara (144) have to hope for difficulties with the Belgian if they want to catch him. In the team ranking, Mercedes (291) leads ahead of their own customer team Venturi (256) and DS-Techeetah (244).
For the season finale, Formula E will travel to the South Korean capital Seoul in a fortnight’ time (13 and 14 August), where another double-header will determine the world champion of 2022.
