After yesterday’s surprise Formula E race in New York and today’s qualifying one might assume that the limit of different kinds of surprises for this weekend has already passed, but that turned out not to be entirely true.
DS Teechetah driver Antonio Felix da Costa reacted well to the traffic light and started confidently from pole, immediately creating a small lead over Alex Sims, who immediately tried to shorten this break.
But Andre Lotterer was unable to start normally from his third starting position, it appeared that his Porsche had suffered a technical failure and several rivals were directly ahead of him.
But he was not the only one who had problems: Jean-Eric Vergne also lost six places.
On the third lap, da Costa, clearly feeling the pressure from Sims, made a braking error in Turn 1 which locked the wheels, which certainly didn’t pass without a trace for the rubber. Nevertheless, António continued to lead, Alex was half a second behind and Stoffel Vandorn was already overtaking him.
In general, the racers of the first eight were separated by very small and about the same intervals, but Lotterer came in ninth and he was already almost two and a half seconds behind the car in front of him, so the rest of the pack that was behind collected his Porsche.
On lap 10, Mitch Evans overtook Jake Dennis and took 6th position followed by Robin Fryance.
Nick de Vries was the first of the breakaway to activate attack mode, but then da Costa and Sims went off the main track to do the same, so Vandorn took the lead on lap 12.
But of course he stayed in this position for less than a lap as he also went for the high power mode and returned to battle in third position with da Costa again leading the race.
On lap 16, Mitch Evans overtook de Vries for excellent maneuvering, moved up to 4th position and already started to put pressure on Vandorn, the second Mercedes driver. Of course, Stoffel did not want to be overtaken by Mitch, known for his flamboyant and aggressive flying style, and he decided to act according to the classic principle “the best defense is an attack”. So Vandorn rushed to attack Alex Sims, who was in second position, and it looked like he had already taken the lead, but the Mahindra rider was still fighting back. In the next round, however, the Belgian made another attempt, which was successful.
On lap 22, Evans de Vries decided to attack, but at the last minute he started coming towards him already in the braking zone. Mitch had to take emergency measures and almost lost his car, but miraculously avoided contact with the barriers. But he still touched the opponent’s Mercedes, although the equipment did not appear damaged, and both continued the race. But over the course of this episode, they had to slow down a bit, so the first three managed to keep going.
De Vries quickly overtook her, but Evans was already 2.5 seconds behind him.
Da Costa remained in the lead, Vandorn was second, followed by Sims, who was already preparing to attack de Vries.
On lap 29, Evans was able to reclaim the top four gap, and the only question was when he would try to move into more decisive action.
But he didn’t have time to do this, because de Vries unexpectedly made it easier for him: he tried to attack Sims before turn 6, but couldn’t keep the car on the track (looks like he jumped on a bump), and his electric Mercedes car stalled at full speed.
The blow was a hit, but something flew out of the car and de Vries lost a number of positions. However, he immediately wanted to withdraw and attacked Sam Bird, but again it was not without problems: Nick jabbed the British Jaguar from behind and damaged his front fender. His electric Mercedes car lost speed, which Frijns took advantage of and was ahead of his compatriot, pushing Nick to 7th position.
On lap 35 Evans still managed to overtake Sims and was now in third place, although the team radioed him warning that he would need to conserve energy to cross the finish line normally.
However, two laps before the end of the race there was a traffic jam on the track when the cars of Lucas di Grassi, Oliver Askew and Jean-Eric Vergne collided in the 7th corner. Yellow flags appeared on this section, but the race continued as the participants somehow managed to disperse and clear the lane.
António Felix da Costa was able to orientate himself correctly in this situation and did not miss the lead, and literally in a few minutes he received the congratulations on the win – the first this year for both him and the DS Teechetah team.
In second, almost a second behind the Portuguese, Stoffel Vandorn finished, and Mitch Evans also came on the podium and started in sixth, but after all the adventures he still won three places back.
However, when we talk about truly heroic breakthroughs, we have to mention Sam Bird, Evans’ partner in Jaguar: he started the race from a distant 16th position and finished fifth!
After the double New York stage in the World Electric Car Championship, the leader changed again: Vandorn moved up to the front line, pushing Edoardo Mortara to second. And Mitch Evans, who finished in the top three for the sixth time this season, is now third in the individual standings. The winner of today’s race is still in sixth place, as the championship start was not very successful for da Costa, and only towards the end did the situation gradually improve.
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.
