Formula E: Cassidy won the race and took the lead

The second qualifying session of the Saudi Formula E weekend confirmed that one of the hallmarks of the electric series is the unpredictability of the results.

If Jean-Eric Vergne won pole position yesterday and started from the front row together with Mitch Evans, today the two-time world champion showed only the 8th result in qualifying, and the New Zealand Jaguar driver did not make it into the top ten at all.

Almost all the cars on the first four rows of the grid were different today, not the same as the day before – only Nick Cassidy again showed good speed and started Saturday’s race in third place, and the aforementioned Vergne completed the top eight .

But yesterday Cassidy climbed to the podium after starting from seventh place, and today the Jaguar factory driver was naturally in a fighting spirit and seriously fighting for the win. All previous events of the weekend indicated that the speed of the Jaguar car allowed this. However, qualifying winner Oliver Rowland and Robin Frijns started ahead of Nick, who had exactly the same plans, and both must be regarded as difficult opponents.

Next to Cassidy’s Jaguar on the second row was the electric car of DS Penske driver Stoffel Vandoorne, and the 2022 world champion was also not to be underestimated.

Sunday’s race consisted of 36 laps, one lap shorter than Friday’s. This was due to the fact that the condition of the track changed, grip became higher, speeds increased – accordingly, battery energy consumption should also increase.

When the starting traffic lights went out it looked like the pole holder had a good start, but Robin Frijns did even better and was first into the first corner. After one lap he managed to break away from the peloton by almost a second, while the rest of the riders still retained their position. Except that the British Dan Ticktum, who started fifteenth, immediately went to the pits of his ERT team to replace the damaged nose cone.

Rowland and Vandoorne were among the first to activate Attack mode, a powerful mode, Frijnes followed suit – to do this, they switched from the trajectory to a special sector, and at that moment Cassidy took the first position. Driving fast, he immediately created a lead of over a second and a half, which was enough to keep the lead when he in turn used Attack mode.

Frijns drove behind him in an attempt to overtake the leader, but he could not get any closer to Jaguar’s electric car. After the first third of the distance, Nick pushed the lead over Robin’s green car to 2.5 seconds, which of course allowed him to activate Attack Mode without losing his position. Frijns, in turn, was already five seconds ahead of Rowland. So no special events took place in the leading group, but the same cannot be said about the middle of the peloton.

Everything was much tighter and sharper there, especially yesterday’s winner Jake Dennis, fought valiantly for position, but unfortunately outside the top ten – after 16 laps he was running 13th and chasing Mitch Evans, whose attacks he successfully beat while taking the lead had on Friday. race.

Meanwhile, Frijns improved and gradually closed the gap to Cassidy: on the 20th lap their cars were separated by just half a second. But Rowland was already closing in on Robin, and one might assume he was preparing an attack as well.

Sam Bird, the McLaren driver who started thirteenth but worked his way up to sixth, made an unexpected mistake, hit the barrier and had to return to the pits with a broken front suspension.

Pascal Wehrlein managed to stay ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne on lap 24 and move up to 7th position.

With ten laps to go, the top five looked like this: Cassidy was still in the lead, followed by Frijns, the Dutchman was chased by Rowland, followed by McLaren’s Jake Hughes and Vandoorne was fifth. But then yellow flags appeared on the track for the first time in two days of the weekend – the brakes on Jehan Daruvala’s Maserati failed and he struggled to slow down, stopping in the departure zone.

His car was quickly towed away and the race resumed.

With five laps to go, Rowland began to indicate his intentions to attack Frijns, but the Nissan team immediately warned him on the radio not to take any risks. However, it didn’t seem like Oliver was following the team’s instructions and continued to put pressure on Robin. But the checkered flag was getting closer and the experienced Frijns did not give his opponent any chance and positioned the car very expertly on the track.

Moreover, on the last lap Robin even tried to attack the leader, but it was too late – Nick Cassidy used the remaining battery energy to improve and achieved a worthy victory, his first with Jaguar. By the way, this was his 50th race in Formula E. In addition, he was recognized as “Driver of the Day” and is the one who now leads the personal standings of the championship.

Robin Frijns finished second and this is his best result in 2024 so far. After the race he said he gave everything he had to overtake Cassidy, literally saying: “Me and him almost killed each other! We didn’t manage to win this time, but we will next time!”

Third place went to Rowland, whose last time on the podium was in 2022, when he was still racing for Mahindra.

If Sam Bird finished fourth yesterday, today this is exactly the result of Jake Hughes, his McLaren teammate. Fifth place went to Stoffel Vandoorne, which was hardly to his liking, but better than yesterday’s fourteenth place.

What about current world champion Jake Dennis? If he won yesterday, he closed out the top ten today and earned at least one bonus point.

The next race in the electric series will have to wait quite a while: the Brazilian round of Formula E is scheduled for March 16.