D’AMBROSIO HEADS THE CHARGE
FORMULA E GOES CRAZY IN MOROCCO
iven how dominant DS Techeetah had appeared to be in round one, and the BMW Andretti squad following up a clean sweep of testing with pole at the Ad Diriyah race, Formula E paddock observers were intrigued to see if that pattern would be repeated last weekend in Marrakech.
However, both teams were usurped in qualifying by Virgin Racing’s Sam Bird, who produced a wild but scintillating fastest lap in superpole to claim his first pole since the second New York race in FE’S third season.
Techeetah driver Jean-eric Vergne would start second, ahead of Nissan e.dams driver Sebastien Buemi, who produced yet another notable qualifying performance. Alexander Sims started fourth in just his second FE race for BMW, ahead of the ever-impressive Mitch Evans (Jaguar) and Antonio Felix da Costa (BMW).
When the lights went out, Bird made the better getaway from the front row, with Vergne fractionally slower away. As he had swung left to cover off his season four title rival, it appeared as Bird had the lead sealed.
Indeed he did, but it all got a bit dramatic behind. This was because as they arrived at the apex, Vergne was suddenly lunging down the inside of Bird, arriving at a much higher speed in what looked like an out-of-character move of desperation. With Bird so far ahead and taking the racing line, Vergne wrestled his car onto the run-off area on the inside, came alongside Bird and clattered into his sidepod.
Fortunately, given he was at no fault for the collision, Bird was able to escape without too much deviation, although he suspected that his machine did nevertheless pick up some damage that would hamper his progress later on.
Vergne’s error was catastrophic for his own race and that of several others. Sims had to brake hard but was able to nip inside the spinning French driver, but Buemi and Evans had to slow and go hard to the right to get around, which dropped them from fourth and fifth to 13th and 14th by the end of lap one.
While that was unfolding, Pascal Wehrlein’s first FE start for Mahindra Racing was brought to an unceremonious and unfortunately early halt when he was rear-ended by Lucas di Grassi. The Brazilian driver and his Audi team felt he was boxed in with nowhere to go, but he still arrived into the melee at much higher speed than those around him after locking up, and he was perhaps fortunate to avoid picking up a penalty for that collision, which also included a touch with Nelson Piquet Jr and nudged Wehrlein into Evans.
Bird raced off at the front, hotly pursued by the BMW pair, Robin Frijns (Virgin), who had cut across the run-off area at Turn 1 to rise from eighth on the grid, Mahindra’s Jerome d’ambrosio and di Grassi. This was the front pack that would fight it out for the win.
Da Costa moved ahead of Sims at the Turn 3 attack mode corner on lap four of what would become a 31-lap event. Bird was eventually overhauled at the Turn 4/5 chicane on lap 11, with Sims following da Costa by on the next straight. From there, Bird appeared to struggle for pace and was overhauled by Frijns, d’ambrosio and di Grassi – although the quartet swapped around regularly as the attack mode strategies played out in entertaining fashion.
But a major error from da Costa produced the ultimate race winner. The BMW pair looked as if they had the race won by lap 21, with a 5.132s gap to d’ambrosio, running line astern and on for a second win in succession. But Sims was not lagging behind, he was glued to the rear of his team-mate’s car. Over the course of the next five laps, the gap to third came steadily down to almost nothing at all.
Approaching the big stop at Turn 7 on lap 26, Sims got a run on his team-mate and moved to the outside. The Briton locked up, but a fraction later da Costa did too. This meant the leader slid wide and they came together as Sims, who had got things back under control, turned in and found he had been left with nowhere to go. Sims was able to make it through the turn and emerge in fourth, but da Costa was out in the barriers and wanting “to find the deepest hole in Marrakech and put myself in it”.
The safety car led the pack around as da Costa’s car was recovered, with d’ambrosio leading Frijns and Bird. A frantic one-lap shootout ended the race as the 45-minutes-plus-one-lap limit ticked over, with d’ambrosio just prevailing ahead of the Virgin pair to take his first on the road FE win – the third overall victory of his career in the electric category – by a mere 0.143s.
Sims finished fourth ahead of Vergne – who recovered magnificently and in the process pretty much confirmed his team’s pace advantage over the rest of the pack. Andre Lotterer raced from 20th to sixth, with di Grassi, Buemi, Evans and Daniel Abt (Audi) completing the top 10.