Saturday’s race at the city circuit in Rome was won by Mitch Evans, which clearly gave him extra strength, and he decided to build on Sunday’s success.
Jean-Eric Vergne, two-time Formula E champion, won today’s qualifying on a difficult circuit through the streets of the Eternal City, started from pole and held the lead without much effort. But the DS Techeetah driver failed to create a noticeable lead: about 0.5s behind him, Jake Dennis of the Andretti team held on.
The same interval separated Andre Lotterer, who was in third, the Porsche racer, who went on the attack on lap 3 and led Dennis with a rather rambunctious manoeuvre. The Briton was soon overtaken by Mitch Evans, the factory Jaguar driver.
While they were all fighting each other, Vergne lost no time and took the advantage to almost a second and a half.
The Frenchman’s partner, António Felix da Costa, also a former world champion, was fighting for places at the end of the top ten, but when he was ahead of Edoardo Mortara, there was quite a bit of contact between the machines. As a result, quite large sections of the Swiss racer’s aerodynamic body kit flew off. As a result, he withdrew from the race, having managed to reach his team’s pits.
On the next lap, after hitting the bump in the final corner of the track, former Formula 1 driver Italian Antonio Giovinazzi’s car stopped and an electric safety car was released to evacuate him. Accordingly, the gaps were leveled. But shortly before that, Mitch Evans managed to stay ahead of Lotterer.
This wasn’t enough for the fast New Zealander, he used his wits and attacked the leader at a moment Vergne didn’t expect at all, leading the race. Meanwhile Robin Frijns improved his positions considerably, ahead of Lotterer and soon Vergne with Evans, but this was due to the Dutchman activating attack mode.
On the next lap, Jean-Eric also used Attack Mode, but as it had to disappear from the racing line, it cost him the loss of two positions. Of course, he expected to recover quickly.
After 15 laps the top five looked like this: Frijns – Lotterer – Evans – Sam Bird – Vergne.
However, this order changed already in the next round, as Lotterer was ahead of Fryens due to Attack Mode and Vergne was ahead of Bird.
But then the electric safety car left the track again after Alex Sims’ car left the track, all the gaps were closed and the peloton gathered again.
Five minutes before the finish, Mitch Evans got some extra power by activating Attack Mode, which caused him to lose a few positions at first, but then got right in front of Vergne and started to put pressure on Friance.
Mitch’s next victim was first the Dutchman, after which Evans also overtook Lotterer without losing time. The image was reminiscent of the end of yesterday’s race, when the New Zealand driver also took decisive action a few laps before the finish and won.
Vergne also had the ability to accelerate, as, according to the results of the fans’ vote, he was given the right to use Fan Boost mode. So Jean-Eric did, which helped him stay ahead of Lotterer and reach 2nd position. At the same time, it was clear that he was not going to overtake the leader, as Evans was already over three seconds away and there was just over a lap left to the finish.
But here, as is often the case in Formula E, there was another mishap that mixed the cards up for many. Jake Dennis’s car crashed into the guardrail, causing an electric safety car to hit the track for the third time.
When the Porsche Paycan returned to the pitlane, there was only one lap to go.
Immediately after the restart, Vergne tried to overtake Evans, but he exaggerated a bit, made a small mistake in one of the corners and Mitch again managed to widen the gap before coming half a second before the finish. his opponent.
It’s not often the same driver wins two races in a row in Formula E, but Mitch Evans does. But even thanks to two wins, it was not he who became the leader of the personal standings, but Vergne, on whose account there are no victories, but he scored more consistently in the first races of the season, when Evans had not yet accelerated . So far, Mitch is only on the 4th line of the individual standings.
It was Jean-Eric who took second place in Rome, and for him this is the best result of the season, and Robin Frijns finished third, who already took the podium yesterday – the Dutchman takes the second line of the personal standings, only two points behind Vergne.
The next stage of the championship will take place on April 30 in Monaco.
Source: F1 News
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
