EVANS PUTS ONE OVER ON VERGNE FOR FORMULA E SUCCESS
Mitch Evans took his third win of the current Formula E season at the inaugural Jakarta E-Prix, while Stoffel Vandoorne’s fifth place kept him at the top of the drivers’ standings as the 2022 season entered its second half in Indonesia.
The Chino-French DS Techeetah squad had dominated in qualifying, locking out the first row as Jean-Eric Vergne and Antonio Felix da Costa both made it through to the final qualifying duel. Vergne started ahead of da Costa in pole position, a place he would hold onto until the final stages of the race.
Held in sweltering temperatures, Evans had a strong launch off the line and was soon past da Costa. The Jaguar then went after Vergne with the pair making a decent gap to the chasing pack.
Double Formula E champion Vergne utilised a calculated Attack Mode strategy to stay ahead of the Kiwi after both had taken their mandatory power boost.
But the Jaguar’s slightly better energy management put Evans in a strong place to attack in the final stages of the race, and with three laps to go the Kiwi positioned his car on the inside of Vergne through Turn 7 and made a clean move into the lead.
Vergne tried to stay with Evans and fight back for the lead, but with slightly less energy and having to thermally manage his DS more, he found his second place under threat from Venturi’s Edoardo Mortara, who had caught the pair under a stealthy energy saving tactic.
It was a photo finish as second and third crossed the line, but as Evans controlled the pace Vergne just held onto second. This helped promote the Frenchman up to second in the drivers’ standings, five points behind Vandoorne as the Mercedes EQ driver took a low-key fifth.
Da Costa finished fourth, seven tenths up on Vandoorne, who led home Andretti’s Jake Dennis.
Mortara’s team-mate Lucas di Grassi took seventh ahead of Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein, Evans’ Jaguar partner Sam Bird and Nissan’s Sebastien Buemi.
Andre Lotterer had been ninth on the track at the chequered flag, but the Porsche driver was handed a five-second penalty for contact with Nyck de Vries, taking the latter out of the race due to a rear left puncture. This relegated Lotterer to a disconsolate 11th.
An early safety car added five minutes to the race time after a tyre came off Oliver Rowland’s Mahindra. He made it back to the pits for a replacement during the safety car, but that incident took him completely out of contention for the rest of the race.
Rowland’s team-mate Alexander Sims placed 15th, while the two other Brits in the race – team-mates at
NIO333, Oliver Turvey and
Dan Ticktum, placed 12th and 18th respectively.
Results
Formula E Jakarta e-Prix When: June 4
Where: Jakarta International e-Prix Circuit
Laps: 40
Race one: 1 Mitch Evans (Jaguar TCS Racing) 48m28.424s; 2 Jean-Eric Vergne (DS Techeetah) +0.733s; 3 Edoardo Mortara (Venturi Racing) +0.967s; 4 Antonio Felix da Costa (DS Techeetah) +3.350s; 5 Stoffel Vandoorne (Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team) +4.038s; 6 Jake Dennis (Andretti Formula E) +4.635s; 7 Lucas di Grassi (Venturi Racing) +5.253s; 8 Pascal Wehrlein (Porsche Formula E Team) +8.191s; 9 Sam Bird (Jaguar TCS Racing) +13.348s; 10 Sebastien Buemi (Nissan e.dams) +14.766s. Pole position: Vergne (DS Techeetah). Fastest lap: Evans 1m09.786 (76.00mph). Championship positions (after 9/16 rounds): 1 Vandoorne 121pts; 2 Vergne 116; 3 Mortara 114; 4 Evans 109; 5 Frijns 81; 6 De Vries 65, etc.