DI GRASSI FINALLY WINS AGAIN
It was bound to happen eventually. Lucas di Grassi finally won a Formula E race for the first time in 2017/18, and long-time championship leader Jean-eric Vergne ran out of luck.
Audi’s di Grassi rose from fifth on the grid to win a race where several drivers – including polesitter Mitch Evans and Vergne – were hit with controversial penalties.
Evans made history with Jaguar’s first FE pole, but couldn’t escape the clutches of pursuers Andre Lotterer and Sam Bird in the early stages. When di Grassi began picking them off one-byone, the writing appeared to be on the wall for the New Zealander – and so it proved to be.
“It maybe looked quite straight forward for Lucas but we didn’t want to create complexity at that point,” Jaguar’s team director James Barclay said of di Grassi’s move to take the lead from Evans on the run to Turn on lap 18 of 39.
After that, the race was characterised by a series of penalties for full course yellow speeding infringements, which followed Felix Rosenqvist’s lost front wing – he’d crashed into the Turn 1 barriers as Vergne, who started down in 17th place, fought him for eighth – meant the race needed to be suspended.
Lotterer, Evans, Jose Maria Lopez, Sebastien Buemi and Vergne were all pinged and hit with drive through penalties. After they’d served them, Bird was elevated to second ahead of Jerome D’ambrosio.
Vergne’s penalty, which followed his “nightmare” qualifying and a gear selection problem at his car swap, dropped him to 11th and although he charged back again, he only scored one point for 10th.
A delighted di Grassi won by 7.5s, with Lotterer fourth and Evans fading to seventh.
Heading the New York season finale – where Bird won both races in 2017 – the Briton has slashed Vergne’s points lead to just 23.
Browning kept race-two win