Formula E: di Grassi takes Swiss victory
As motor racing returned to Switzerland for the first time since the 1950s, Audi’s reigning champion showed incredible form for victory
This was bound to happen eventually. Lucas di Grassi finally won a Formula E race for the first time in the 2017-18 season, and longtime championship leader Jean-eric
Vergne eventually ran out of luck.
That di Grassi and fellow FE grandee Sebastien Buemi were still to score a season-four race win heading to Zurich was a glaring anomaly for the electric series. But while Buemi’s wait for a victory goes on, di Grassi turned his season around in style.
He’d come close before. After the inverter problems that blighted the opening races of Audi’s championship were fixed, he began a remarkable run of form, with four runner-up spots in a row from Punta del Este to Berlin. Only a penalty for clipping a bollard in qualifying in Punta, and Vergne’s sterling defence from an inherited pole, denied him what would almost certainly have been a duck-breaking season-four triumph in Uruguay.
For Vergne, a trio of fifth places in Marrakech, Mexico City and Rome represented his worst finishing positions of the season so far as he arrived in Zurich. But, along with his good fortune in Punta, two of those fifths had only been possible thanks to other drivers retiring or dropping down the order late on. The Techeetah Renault driver seemed to be enjoying the classic motorsport cliche of ‘championships are won with good results on off days’, and could have conceivably clinched the title last Sunday had things played out differently.
“I said before this that we were probably going to be thrown a curveball in Zurich – we had to have our turn of the Formula E craziness,” said Techeetah team boss
Mark Preston. “We seemed to get all of it in one.” Indeed they did.
After a soggy and last-minute build-up – the lateness of the track’s completion necessary to keep the race’s impact on the city to an absolute minimum – the 1.531-mile Zurich Street Circuit made a rather glorious FE debut. It featured the longest straight in the championship’s history on the run from the classically Fe-tight chicane to Turn 10, and many drivers were also predicting new top-speed records – although some were less hopeful as the teams had had to submit their gearratio choices ahead of the campaign.
It was roasting hot right from the off on race day, which meant “we knew it was going to be tough because of the temperatures” and battery cooling would be a key limiting factor, according to di Grassi. The Brazilian topped FP1, which still stood as the morning’s fastest time following FP2, but the recent Audi trait of not carrying form
“We knew where we were on race pace, but in general the others were slower than we expected”
from practice through to qualifying – where di Grassi ran in group two – and which was banished in Berlin, returned. The 2016-17 champion had to settle for fifth on the grid. By missing the points for pole, his already minuscule chances of a successful title defence were finally extinguished for good.
But things were worse for Vergne. The Frenchman was the first driver out on track in group one and he endured a “nightmare” session as his time left him bottom of the opening group and staring at a lowly grid spot. As the hour wore on, he was shuffled down to 17th place – his worst position of the season so far and the joint-worst of his FE career. Compounding matters for Vergne, who reportedly had to take a quick dip in the lake to cool off ahead of the race, his nearest championship challenger Sam Bird made it through to superpole and lined up third behind Andre Lotterer and Mitch Evans.
In what was a first piece of FE history for Jaguar (see panel, right), Evans was simply scintillating against the clock in Zurich, riding the track’s prominent bumps in confident and attacking fashion, and ending up with his first category pole after also topping the group qualifying times.
“Going last in superpole, that’s a pressure situation, but he dealt with that well and absolutely smashed a fantastic lap together,” said Jaguar team director James Barclay.
But while Evans was the star of qualifying, di Grassi made the race his own. After a low-key start – the former Virgin Formula 1 driver did make it up to fourth by passing another qualifying hero, Dragon’s Jerome d’ambrosio, on the second lap, but remained behind the top three for the next 11 laps – he then began his charge.
Bird, who had harried Lotterer as they pursued Evans in the early stages, the duo methodically eroding the New Zealander’s early two-second advantage throughout the first third of the race’s 39 laps, was his first victim. Heading into Turn 10 on lap 13, di Grassi sent his car down the inside of Bird’s DS Virgin Racing machine to clinically seal the move at the hairpin.
One of the Audi’s main strengths is the strong efficiency of its powertrain, which handed di Grassi an energy advantage over his rivals that he put to good use. Lotterer, already one of FE’S fiercest defensive drivers despite his rookie status (although that is somewhat unsurprising given his vast motorsport experience), looked as if he would stunt di Grassi’s progress. But the triple Le Mans winner could only defy his former Audi stablemate for so long, and di Grassi forced his way to the inside of the fast Turn 1 right-hander at the beginning of lap 16 to take second.
From there, he romped after Evans and, at the start of lap 18, he blasted by on the start-finish straight to move into the lead. It looked almost too easy. “We knew where we were on race pace, but in general the others were slower than we expected,” said Audi team principal Allan Mcnish. “In qualifying they were a bit quicker than we expected, and they were a bit slower in the race.”
While di Grassi had been making his way to the front serenely, Vergne was slicing through the order in swashbuckling style. By lap nine he had carved his way up to 10th, setting a swathe of fastest laps as he did so, and making good on his pre-race promise not to “drop my weapons” in wheel-to-wheel combat. What was even more impressive was that he did so while maintaining similar energy levels to those running at the front of the race.
But, again, things got worse for Vergne. As he attempted to pass Felix Rosenqvist for eighth place at Turn 1 on lap 17, the Swede “just tried to let him go”, but Vergne was still alongside at the apex. Rosenqvist therefore felt he had no choice but to hit the outside barrier to avoid a collision.
“In the last moment he was just there, so to avoid touching him I just had to take a line to leave him the room, and with that line being in the dirt I couldn’t make the
corner, so I just crashed in the wall,” said the Mahindra Racing driver, who is also now officially out of the title hunt.
Rosenqvist reversed out of the barrier and escaped, but lost his front wing a few corners later. On the next tour, Vergne hit the debris as he fought past d’ambrosio for seventh – which he survived seemingly without issue – but it forced the race officials to throw a full-course yellow that ignited controversy a short while later.
The leaders piled into the pits, where things, yet again, got worse for Vergne.
As he jumped into his second car it “didn’t slot into gear and I lost six, seven seconds”, which dropped him back to ninth.
When the racing resumed, di Grassi held a commanding 2.5s lead, and his situation looked even better when it was announced that Lotterer (now ahead of Evans in second), Evans, Buemi, Jose Maria Lopez and Vergne were under investigation for
FCY infringements. Sure enough, the first four of those were hit with drivethrough penalties, and then a little while later things got worse again for Vergne when he too had the same sanction confirmed.
In the immediate aftermath of the race, confusion reigned over exactly what had caused such a high number of FCY infractions. Was it to do with the different software required for Zurich’s 30km/h cobbled pitlane interfering with the usual 50km/h FCY speed setting? Had the drivers misheard the five-second countdown or misread the trackside boards? No-one seemed quite sure.
It later transpired that Lotterer, Evans and Lopez had failed to slow sufficiently in time for the FCY coming into effect, while Vergne and Buemi were pinged for hitting the accelerator too early at the end of the suspension period.
Ultimately, what all that chaos meant was that with eight laps remaining – as the guilty parties served their penalties – di Grassi had a 7.9s lead over Bird, with d’ambrosio up to third. The trio held these positions to the finish, with di Grassi sealing his first FE win since Montreal last July by 7.5s, while d’ambrosio recorded his first podium finish since Battersea Park in July 2016.
Lotterer finished fourth ahead of Buemi, who at one stage before the FCY fun had demoted Bird to fifth and was running well in the mix in fourth. Nick Heidfeld, another penalty beneficiary, was sixth from Evans, who faded late on in both stints. Antonio Felix da Costa finished eighth ahead of Oliver Turvey, who defied Vergne’s final charge back from 11th after his penalty. Lopez placed 12th after nosing into the barriers at Turn 1 in the final laps.
It may not have been quite as dominant as it was in Berlin, but Mcnish was still delighted with his squad’s historic performance to seal the first victory in a motor race in Switzerland in 64 years – almost as pleased as he was to hear Scotland had beaten England in the cricket one-day international in Edinburgh the same day.
“To come away with the victory as the first team to have done it, and Lucas as the first driver to have done it, is really special,” he said, still wet from a celebratory dip in the lake.
“Winning this race was easier than finishing second in Paris or Rome, but of course winning is always good and
I had a fantastic car today,” said a delighted di Grassi. “We’ve been very unlucky the first half of this season and now the luck has turned – five consecutive podiums I think is a record, and to win in Zurich is the cherry on the cake.”
Despite all that happened to him over the course of the day, Vergne was bullish about his performance, calling it “the best drive I’ve ever had in Formula E”. But, even with all his efforts, his pre-event 40-point lead has been slashed to 23. And Bird won both races in New York – where FE heads next for its climax – last year.
“It feels very frustrating to score only one point knowing I could have finished second – but on the other hand I have a lot of margin in the championship,” Vergne reflected. “I have a very good car – I am very motivated to put this weekend [behind me] and have the next one very good. Last year in New York we were very quick, so
I’m feeling very confident.”
Bird had not been giving too much away ahead of the Zurich race on his championship chances, but it was clear he’d adopted a never-give-up approach. He was frustrated at the “missed opportunity to get three extra points for pole”, but gave it his all in the race, profiting from the penalties, which he acknowledged gave him a “little bit of luck”. But he rightly pointed out: “There are rules in motorsport and if you don’t abide by them, then you can get penalties”.
Buemi’s Montreal meltdown in 2017 may have been unthinkable last season, but his plight offers Bird hope in the title fight, and FE the tantalising prospect of a fourth successive championship going to the wire. For Bird, it’s clear what he needs to do next.
“I need to beat him in the first race in New York, end of story,” he said. “I need to put the pressure for race two, and if
I can do that then there’s a chance.”