António Félix da Costa took advantage of a race with few variations in strategy to hold on to first place from start to finish in New York. Back to the championship lead, Stoffel Vandoorne shows strength and finishes second
Formula E teams and drivers recovered from the chaos caused by rain - and the circuit's lack of runoff - in this weekend's first race in New York, and António Félix da Costa held on to his pole position after Nick Cassidy was punished to cross the finish line first, with Stoffel Vandoorne - again the leader - and Mitch Evans completing the podium in the race that completed the penultimate stage of the season.The race was marked by few strategic variations in strategy, and the race was a great success, with the driver and driver's team taking the lead in the second-to-last race of the 2021/2022 season in the electric single-seater category.
The race was marked by few strategic variations, which inhibited the fight for the lead. Thus, Da Costa calmly cruised to DS Techeetah's first win of the season - interestingly, with the driver of the team not contending for the title, while Jean-Èric Vergne missed scoring for only the second time in 2022, both times this weekend.
Despite the great starting position, Sérgio Sette Câmara once again suffered with Dragon's equipment and lost several positions. The Brazilian held on to the scoring zone until the second half of the race, but he got involved in a collision with Jake Dennis and ended up zeroed out once again after abandoning on the last lap in a fight with Lucas Di Grassi.
Formula E will now only return at the end of the month. The eP London double round, the penultimate round of the championship, is scheduled to take place on July 30 and 31.
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Check out race 2 of the eP New York:
The start was smooth for the frontrunners, with the exception of André Lotterer - who simply got stuck, losing several positions and dropping to 11th place. António Félix da Costa kept the lead, followed by Alexander Sims and Stoffel Vandoorne. Meanwhile, Sérgio Sette Câmara got off to a good start and held on to fourth place.
The Brazilian's teammate, however, was overtaken by Robin Frijns - who took eighth place. The top-10 at this point was made up of Da Costa, Sims, Vandoorne, Sette Câmara, Nyck de Vries, Jake Dennis, Mitch Evans, Frijns, Giovinazzi, and Oliver Askew.
While Vandoorne managed to gain two positions on the first lap, his title contenders were not so lucky: Mitch Evans was seventh, Jean-Èric Vergne was 16th, and Edoardo Mortara was 19th.
With just over 40 minutes and one lap to go, De Vries attacked Sette Câmara and took the fourth position from the Brazilian, who managed to set the best lap on the next lap. Soon after, Evans attacked Dennis in a difficult overtake and touched the Briton's Andretti, who managed to hold on to sixth place.
The title contenders began to push the pace, trying to gain positions. Vergne passed Giovinazzi, Mortara left Rowland behind, and Evans pressed Dennis hard, while the Briton was close to Sette Câmara. Vandoorne, meanwhile, kept a safe distance from the Brazilian, in third place.
Dan Ticktum was the first driver to activate the attack mode with 35 minutes to go - with Giovinazzi and Wehrlein opting for it soon after. It is worth remembering that all drivers have the obligation to go through attack mode, which in this Sunday's race had eight minutes in just one activation - on Saturday, there were two activations of four minutes each.
Soon after Evans finally took Frijns' sixth place, Sette Câmara also activated the extra power and lost the fifth position to the New Zealander. In the fight for the top positions, Vandoorne took advantage of the activation of the attack mode by the leaders Da Costa and Sims and took the first position of the race for the first time.
The curious thing is that the Belgian had already been warned by Mercedes to activate the extra power, but he opted for overtaking and did the normal route. Thus, he went into attack mode on the next spin and returned to third place - with Da Costa first and Sims second. Evans also went into the outside track and managed to stay fifth, ahead of Sette Câmara.
In fourth place, De Vries did his best to hold off Evans - who was trying to get closer to third place Vandoorne, his direct competitor for the title - but the New Zealander from Jaguar pushed until he got the best of him and left the reigning champion behind. From then on, Mitch started to get closer and closer to his rival, even touching the back of the Mercedes
Vandoorne, taking advantage of the last moments of the attack mode, even tried an attack on Sims, who held the second place without major problems. At this moment, Sette Câmara and Dennis were involved in an accident, and the Brazilian crashed out of the grid, dropping to 10th place. The other Brazilian, Lucas Di Grassi, tried a different strategy: unlike almost all the other drivers, the Venturi driver activated the attack mode with 20 minutes to the end of the race.
At the front, Vandoorne attacked Sims and took second place from the Briton, who spun on the track when he was touched by De Vries soon after. A lap later, Evans tried a dangerous dive to regain the position lost to Nyck and missed the braking point at the top of the corner - narrowly missing the wall.
With 15 minutes to go, the top-10 was: Da Costa, Vandoorne, Sims, De Vries, Evans, Frijns, Bird, Dennis, Lotterer, and Vergne. Sette Câmara was 11th, while Di Grassi was one position behind.
Vandoorne started pushing the leader Da Costa for his second win of the season, but his Mercedes teammate kept overdoing it: Nyck de Vries once again tried a too 'bold' overtake, lost control of the car and hit the wall. Miraculously, the car suffered little damage and the #17 was able to continue in the race.
And De Vries continued to be the protagonist of the race on the next lap: trying to avoid Sam Bird's overtake, the Dutchman closed in on his rival and had his rear end touched by the British driver, losing the sixth position. In the fight for the victory, Evans tried to get closer to Vandoorne and forced an overtake on Sims, who did everything to hold on to third place.
The Mahindra driver managed to hold on for a while, but Evans didn't give up and took third place with a little over two minutes to go. At the last minute, Lucas Di Grassi spun on the track after trying to overtake Vergne and held off a large part of the back pack while trying to maneuver his car, causing a real traffic jam on the Brooklyn track.
With broken cars in several corners, the yellow flag was brought out in the last seconds of the race - which prevented any possible attack by Vandoorne on Da Costa, who kept the lead without any problems until the end.