The final race of the season in Formula E not only determined the fate of the championship title, but also marked the 100th anniversary in the history of the electric series. This year, the World Electric Car Racing Championship went on tour to South Korea for the first time, and it can be said that the battle on the track, laid out by the Seoul Olympic Park and partly through the stadium, has given fans a lot of intense emotions.
Sunday’s qualifying was won by DS Techeetah’s António Felix da Costa, but more importantly, the individual classification leader, Stoffel Vandorn, set fourth fastest, starting the final race from the second row, while his only rival in the title race, Mitch Evans, took only 13th starting position.
Da Costa got off to a strong start and held the lead, Edoardo Mortara and Jake Dennis battled it out for second, but the Venturi driver repulsed the attack but a huge blockage formed behind the group of leaders – several cars at least at the same time received minor damage, collision in the second corner, but everyone was able to drive on.
Already at the end of the first lap, Mortara da Costa tried to attack, but the Portuguese fought back. However, already through the circle, Edoardo executed an exceptionally daring overtake, pushing Antonio’s car to the outer edge of the track and taking the lead. In addition, Costa also missed Dennis.
At the same time, Vandorn continued to ride in fourth position, calmly watching the battle unfold in front of him.
After four laps Evans was able to regain several positions, climbed to 9th place and already started to overtake Jean-Eric Vergne. In any case, he could only hope for the appearance of a safety car – without it, overtaking Vandorn, and especially ahead, was problematic. To turn the tide and win the title, all he needed was a win against the backdrop of some opposition issues.
Da Costa, Vandorn and Robin Frijns, who followed them, were the first to use Attack Mode, a high power mode, but yellow flags appeared on the track after the collision of Pascal Wehrlein and Nyck de Vries. The Porsche driver was forced to stop and Nick went to the pits to change the punctured wheel, but at the pit stop the car was damaged and it was impossible to continue the race.
After a few laps Evans also got a power boost, Vergne tried to attack, but was only able to close the gap on the Frenchman’s car.
After 12 laps Mortara remained in the lead, Dennis followed in two seconds and behind the Briton da Costa and Vandorn battled for 3rd position, but Antonio managed to keep it.
On lap 13, Lucas di Grassi, who was out of the top ten, returned to the pits due to a puncture, dropping him to 14th position.
After another lap, Max Günther’s car stopped on the track – before that, the Nissan racer got the bump in the 4th corner and the front suspension broke on the left. The electric safety car took off, the peloton gathered, the brake pads were leveled and theoretically this could help Mitch Evans. But he was still in eighth place with Vandorn leading three cars, so the New Zealand Jaguar driver’s job was hardly any easier.
A restart was given on lap 18, Mortara maintained the lead and immediately activated attack mode, which helped him extend the lead. Da Costa did the same, but when he tried to attack Dennis there was contact between the cars, causing the Portuguese to run into a barrier and lose many positions, although he was able to get back on track.
The stewards began investigating the incident, but this situation pushed Vandorn up to third. Evans, on the other hand, was hopelessly stuck behind Wern – the DS Techeetah driver has always been an uneasy opponent and now he did everything he could to prevent Mitch from continuing.
Shortly before the finish of the race it was announced that Jake Dennis was given a five second penalty for pushing da Costa off the track, therefore the Andretti driver should have lost some positions and Vandorn should have moved up to second place, and this is an extra title guarantee. But it took over five minutes for the checkered flag to go off, so while the battle continued on the track.
Da Costa, angered by the unfortunate turn of events ahead of him, continued to fight furiously and overtook Norman Navo to climb to 13th place. Almost immediately afterwards, the Portuguese overtook Alex Sims and Lucas di Grassi – only one position in the top ten remained, but that was little consolation after the missed podium.
As expected, Edoardo Mortara crossed the finish line first, almost two seconds ahead of the nearest pursuer – he was Jake Dennis, but the Brit was still waiting for a penalty, so actually second place went to Stoffel Vandorn, and this not only assured him the title – Mercedes EQ won the team championship in its last race in Formula E.
Jake Dennis still managed to take the podium, thanks to a sufficient lead over Robin Friance, who took 4th place, and the championship debutant American Oliver Askew, who plays for the Andretti team, rounded out the top five .
Mitch Evans took 7th place and won the Formula E runner-up – in any case the best result for the New Zealand Jaguar factory team driver in six years in the electric series.
Third place at the end of the season was taken by Mortara, today’s race winner, although this result is unlikely to make Swiss driver Venturi very happy, as he led the individual standings for quite some time, but a series of failed appearances in the second half of the championship did not allow him to hold on to this position.
The Seoul final in 2022 was the last race for the second generation of Formula E cars and next season the championship teams will switch to Gen3 vehicles.
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.
