Jake Dennis did not threaten at any point to lose first place in Formula E race 1 in London, while Stoffel Vandoorne made a safety run to further increase his lead at the top of the championship
A recital in London. With pole-position, best lap and end-to-end victory, Jake Dennis reigned triumphant at the ExCel Arena, which went crazy for the home driver, to secure his third victory in Formula E, the first of the season, on Saturday (30). Stoffel Vandoorne, more leader than ever, finished second and Nyck de Vries completed the podium in a very strong day for Mercedes in England.
The London race was marked by several incidents once again, but this year in a less chaotic way than in 2021. Despite starting fourth, Sergio Sette Câmara again had problems with the Dragon car and still remained in the top-10 until the end, but dragged on the last lap due to a defect and did not even complete the race.
The title fight became much more comfortable for Vandoorne, who saw only Mitch Evans score among the drivers who still dream of the title. Jean-Èric Vergne had another chaotic race in the middle of the pack and came away with a zero for the third time in a row, while Edoardo Mortara suffered a crash from Sam Bird right at the start and drove the entire race closer to taking a lap from the leaders than to closing in on the last drivers. As a result, the New Zealander took second place.
The second race of the Formula E weekend in London happens this Sunday (31st), also starting at 11am (Brasília time), with live broadcasting on TV Cultura and SporTV 3. Before that, the category will hold the second qualifying session starting at 6:40 am.
Check out London's eP 1:
Stoffel Vandoorne started well and went for Jake Dennis - who held the lead - at the start, completely chaotic from the middle to the back. Edoardo Mortara took the worst of it and saw his situation become even more difficult in the race for the title, falling from ninth to 15th place when Sam Bird was knocked out of the race in the first corner. The Swiss driver, who lost the front end of his car, had to return to the Venturi pits to change the front end of the car, and completely compromised his race.
Mortara's teammate Lucas Di Grassi, who had started last and was now in 17th place, moved up several positions. As for the title race, the situation became more and more comfortable for Vandoorne: the Belgian Mercedes driver was simply the only one who scored points.
Besides his Nyck de Vries teammate, Vergne was 11th and struggling to pass his DS Techeetah teammate António Félix da Costa; Mortara was suffering from Bird's crash and riding in last place after returning to the race; and Mitch Evans was only 13th, stuck behind Sébastien Buemi. On lap 4, Sérgio Sette Câmara came out for the first time after focusing on maintaining fourth place at the start, and went after Nyck de Vries, taking third place from the Mercedes driver.
The race involved many collisions between drivers, which generated a certain amount of debris on the track - including Di Grassi's front wing, which was broken after an incident with Oliver Rowland. Even so, the race direction maintained the green flag.
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The drivers then took the opportunity to start their strategies near the tenth lap. Several competitors chose to activate the attack mode for the first time, aware that the minimum required for the first race is two activations. Sette Câmara was one of them, and De Vries took advantage of it to take back third place.
De Vries had the best lap of the race at the 16th turn, with 1min15s340. At this point, the top-10 was in the following order: Dennis, Vandoorne, De Vries, Sette Câmara, Askew, Cassidy, Günther, Frijns, Da Costa and Evans. Di Grassi was 12th, Vergne was 16th, and Mortara was still closer to taking a lap from the leaders than he was to the pack in 20th place - he gained one position with a Rowland retirement.
The second activation of attack mode by most of the drivers came near lap 18, when there were just over 21 minutes and one lap remaining in the race. Da Costa and Evans took advantage of this to take the position of Frijns, who became tenth. At almost the same time, Dennis set a new fastest lap of the race: 1min14s429, the first driver to go under 1min15s in the entire race.
Without using attack mode for the second time, Di Grassi continued to battle his way up the field and overtook André Lotterer to take 11th place - just outside the scoring zone. Oliver Askew was trying to press Sette Câmara for fourth place, but was more concerned with the onslaught from Nick Cassidy, who was trying to take fifth place.
Previously focused on not getting involved in incidents and keeping second place, Vandoorne definitely tightened the pace from lap 25 and quickly caught up with Jake Dennis, who reigned absolute leader. Meanwhile, Cassidy finally used the attack mode to pass Oliver Askew and became a threat to Sette Câmara, who had to defend his fourth place.
The Brazilian did everything he could, but the extra power of the Envision car spoke louder: Cassidy took the side and left the Dragon driver behind. Mortara gained another position when Antonio Giovinazzi returned to the pits - again - but he was still 19th, threatened to take a lap from the leaders.
Further on, Evans had left Da Costa behind to take eighth place, but he could see Günther almost three seconds ahead and was struggling to close the gap to the Nissan driver. Di Grassi finally got into the scoring zone for the first time with less than ten minutes to go and passed Robin Frijns, taking 10th place from the Dutchman.
Suffering from Dragon's race pace, Sette Câmara started defending in every possible way to stay in the scoring zone, but lost consecutive positions to Askew, Günther and Evans and dropped to eighth place. After overtaking the Brazilian, the Jaguar driver took the second place in the championship, behind Vandoorne.
On the 34th lap, another punishment for Lucas Di Grassi: the Brazilian was penalized 5s by the race direction for a dispute with Robin Frijns and lost his hopes of scoring in race 1 in London. At the front, Cassidy went all out for De Vries for third place.
The two drivers fought an incredible battle over two full laps, with many sprawls and a few touches. However, the defending champion got the better of them at the end and managed to keep the podium. In any case, the spotlight was all on Jake Dennis, who received all the affection of the British public when he crossed the finish line.