Formula E: Race in Rome won by Jake Dennis

Mitch Evans failed to repeat yesterday’s success in Italy’s capital, for which he was nicknamed “Roman Emperor”. If on Saturday the New Zealand driver of the Jaguar factory team took pole position and then confidently won the first race of the weekend, he started Sunday with the best time in practice, continued with a 4th result in qualifying, but in the he was unable to finish the second race of the weekend.

Here’s how events unfolded on the challenging Rome city circuit.

Because of the start from the second row, Mitch could count on at least a podium. Separately, it is worth noting that his partner, Sam Bird, showed 5th result in today’s qualifying, although his electric Jaguar car was completely destroyed in Saturday’s accident.

The team’s engineers and mechanics literally had to work all night to restore the car, but they managed to do it anyway. The accident was really serious and before the start on Sunday Sam admitted that he feels some physical consequences, but they are not so serious as to prevent him from performing in the second race.

Jake Dennis, Andretti’s team driver, started from pole position. From the first moment he was pressured by Envision Racing’s Nick Cassidy, who showed the second fastest time in Sunday qualifying, and he was now only five points more. Such a front row start promised a fundamental battle at least in the first leg of the race.

By the way, the race was going to be hot by all accounts – temperatures in Rome will reach 35 degrees this weekend.

Dennis got off to a good start and kept the lead, he was chased by Cassidy, but already on the first lap the New Zealander missed the attack of Norman Nato, the NIssan driver, who started from 3rd position. The Jaguar duo held on to 4th and 5th place so far.

But already on the 2nd lap the order in the top five changed again: Cassidy regained second position, and Evans was ahead of Nato and moved up to third. But then the unexpected happened: on turn 7, Mitch raced to attack Cassidy, but made a mistake on the brakes, locked the wheels, his car spun, and she ran into Cassidy’s Envision from behind.

From the outside, the incident looked impressive: the New Zealander’s Jaguar soared high into the air and landed already in the safety zone, additionally losing damaged aerodynamic elements. Surprisingly, after such a serious collision, Mitch came into the pits, the mechanics changed his car’s nose cone and he returned to the track albeit in last position.

However, he soon had to admit on the radio that it was not possible to drive such a machine. By the way, Cassidy also stayed on track, although he asked the team to closely monitor all modes of operation of the car, because he was not sure how much she suffered.

After a short period with the electric safety car on track, the race resumed. Jake Dennis took the lead, NATO came second and Sam Bird, the culprit of yesterday’s massive blockade, moved into third position. But today his partner created a similar situation on the track, although the consequences of the collision were not so dramatic.

On lap 6, Bird tried to attack NATO, but added in turn and tried to get ahead of Dennis, but hooked his car and severely damaged the front fender of his electric car. How long such a wing would last was unclear, but Norman seemed to be losing speed and the distance between him and the leader was growing noticeably.

However, he decided to activate the high power mode, for which he went off the line in the turn 15 hairpin, and Bird moved into second position.

On lap 9, António Felix da Costa made a mistake, flew off the track and lost several positions, dropping him to 15th. In the next round, Bird received instructions from the team to make decisive action, attacked Dennis, but acted skillfully, fending off the opponent and holding on to the lead.

As the race reached the equator, the top five looked like this: Dennis-Bird-Nato-Sebastien Buemi-Dan Tiktum.

Sam didn’t stop trying to take the lead from Jake and at times it seemed like he was about to come forward, but he couldn’t bring the matter to an end.

On the same lap, Lucas di Grassi damaged the car by catching the bump stop, after which he had to return to the Mahindra team’s pits and retire.

On lap 14, Sam Bird took advantage of the attack mode, dropping him to 4th position initially, but quickly moving back to third. He failed to progress as Dennis and NATO also activated and added this mode.

Norman probably felt that, despite the damaged wing, the car could let him go really fast and wouldn’t give up. Sam drove circle after circle close behind the Frenchman’s car and Dennis managed to slightly increase the gap on his pursuers. However, he did not try to get a real noticeable advantage yet, even if the speed of the machine allowed it, but he had to take care of saving energy.

With five laps to go, Dennis remained in the lead, with the Nato second and Bird third, as he still couldn’t get ahead of Norman, even though he literally buried himself in the diffuser of the Envision drivers car. Surprisingly, the Frenchman was able to maintain an excellent pace despite the crumpled front wing.

Buemi was in 4th place and Edoardo Mortara, a Maserati driver, who had broken down the day before and now wanted to compensate somewhat for yesterday’s losses, moved up to 5th place. When Buemi activated attack mode, his Swiss compatriot moved up to 4th, but Sebastien failed to regain the position, despite a temporary increase in power.

The finish line was getting closer and the batteries of NATO’s cars had noticeably less energy left than Bird’s, and the intrigue was whether or not this would affect the results of the race. It had no effect, although judging by the infographics shown on TV screens during the broadcast, he actually crossed the finish line due to sluggishness, but kept second position.

Sam Bird finished third and a well-deserved victory after starting from pole went to Jake Dennis – for the Andretti rider this is the second such success of the season, but he climbed the podium for the 9th time, and it is not surprising that the 28-year-old Briton once again took the lead in the electric series.

He pushed Cassidy, who didn’t score today, to the second line and now his lead is 24 points, but before the Italian leg it was much less. Nick is obviously offended, he’s not responsible for Evans crashing into him, although the New Zealander, commenting on the incident, said Cassidy braked unexpectedly early in that corner, so he just didn’t have time to do something. Of course it’s a pity and Mitch, he had excellent chances to win, but at the beginning of the race he missed them. However, he managed to stay in 3rd place in the personal ranking.

There is one London stage left before the end of the electric car racing championship, but like the Roman stage it will be doubled, so the results are sure to make another major change in the balance of power.