Jake Dennis Claims Dominant Home Victory as Vandoorne Extends Championship Lead

Jake Dennis led from start to finish at the London E-Prix, to claim a superb home victory. Stoffel Vandoorne claimed second to seriously extend his Drivers’ Championship lead, with only Mitch Evans managing to finish in the points from the chasing three drivers in the title-fight.

As the lights went out there was immediate drama, as Sam Bird was spun-round on the exit of Turn Two, causing chaos behind. Bodywork flew everywhere as the Brit was forced into an instant retirement, whilst title challenger Edoardo Mortara was forced into the pits for a new front-wing.

Mortara returned to the circuit no where near the next nearest car, replays showed that it was the Swiss driver who tagged Bird, after being sandwiched.

At the front they remained as they were, with Dennis leading from Vandoorne and Nyck de Vries. Elsewhere, the DS Techeetah duo made contact not once but twice, with António Félix Da Costa clearly having no intention of supporting his team-mates championship bid.

Sérgio Sette Câmara was a man a mission in the opening ten minutes, after performing an incredible move on De Vries at Turn One, moving the Brazilian up to third. Bird’s bodywork remained on the circuit bizarrely, with the amount of debris on the track soon increasing, as Oliver Rowland lost a huge chunk of carbon fibre down the main-straight.

It took ten minutes of the race to take place before drivers began to go for attack mode, as the remaining twenty-one drivers circuited at a rapid pace. De Vries was the biggest winner of the first attack mode, after activating his before SSC, meaning that when SSC went for his De Vries reclaimed third.

The race calmed slightly after the first fifteen-minutes, where Evans and Jean-Éric Vergne remained outside the top ten. Nick Cassidy was the last driver to activate his first attack mode losing one place in the process; however, he immediately re-overtook Maximilian Günther at the penultimate corner.

Vergne began to fall backwards twenty-minutes into the race, the Frenchman ran wide whilst attempting an overtake on Lucas Di Grassi. It worked out badly for Vergne, who dropped to sixteenth as a result.

The majority of the drivers opted to use their second attack mode early in the race, with battery usage not being a problem around the ExCeL Centre circuit. At the front, Dennis continued to dominate the race and stretched his lead to well over a second.

With twenty-one minutes left, Rowland became the second retiree of the race, following substantial damage to the front-right of his Mahindra Racing car. Evans managed to make his way up to the points places after twenty-five minutes; however, the New Zealander was still eight-places behind championship leader Vandoorne.

Sébastian Buemi was awarded a five-second penalty during the race, after causing a collision with old-rival Di Grassi. At the front, Vandoorne began to close Dennis down, the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team driver closed the gap to half-a-second, where it remained for a number of laps.

Fanboost was awarded to Evans, Vandoorne, Mortara, Da Costa and Di Grassi; however, it had little to no effect on proceedings. A quite few minutes was brought to an end by a flying Cassidy, who pulled off a brilliant move on Oliver Askew for fifth-place, whilst using his second attack mode.

The Envision Racing driver continued on his surge a lap later, pulling off another great move but this time on Sette Câmarafor fourth. The New York winner had two minutes of attack mode left to close down a two-second gap to third-placed De Vries.

With ten minutes remaining, Antonio Giovinazzi became the third retirement of the race, after driving his Dragon/Penske Autosport car into the pits with a suspected mechanical problem. The Italian was also awarded a five-second time penalty, for causing a collision with Oliver Turvey. Robin Frijns was also awarded a five-second penalty shortly before, for moving under braking.

Evans was the late race charger, with the Kiwi being the only driver with attack mode in the final five minutes. The TCS Jaguar Racing driver made a move on Sette Câmara for seventh-place, and set about on his charge for sixth.

Back at the front, and Dennis rebuilt his lead to over a second from Vandoorne, whereas De Vries and Cassidy battled for third. In the mid-pack Di Grassi was the next driver to be awarded a five-second penalty for causing a collision with Frijns.

The battle between De Vries and Cassidy was frenetic, with the pair almost coming together at the first corner on the last lap. Cassidy was kilometres away from being put into the wall, with De Vries defending aggressively.

De Vries managed to hold on to third, though, with Dennis taking a home victory on complete control, with Vandoorne claiming a strong second-place. Evans managed to recover to third; however, Vandoorne still managed to extend his points in the Drivers’ Championship. The Belgian driver made it ten points finishes in a row.

There was heartache for SSC, with the Brazilian losing a points finish on the last lap, after running out of energy. He remains to score a point in the championship. Both Vergne and Mortara failed to score a point.

London E-Prix Race 1 Full Results:

POS.	NO.	NAME.	NAT.	TEAM.	TIME/GAP.
1	27	Jake Dennis	GBR	Avalanche Andretti FE Team	46:56.557
2	5	Stoffel Vandoorne	BEL	Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team	+2.223
3	17	Nyck de Vries	NED	Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team	+12.367
4	7	Nick Cassidy	NZL	Envision Racing	+12.663
5	28	Oliver Askew	USA	Avalanche Andretti FE Team	+14.904
6	22	Mitch Evans	NZL	TCS Jaguar Racing	+17.128
7	37	António Félix Da Costa	POR	DS Techeetah	+17.733
8	36	Maximilian Günther	GER	Nissan e.DAMS	+22.067
9	48	Lucas Di Grassi	BRZ	ROKIT Venturi Racing	+32.139
10	4	Pascal Wehrlein	GER	TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team	+34.347
11	13	Sébastian Buemi	CHE	Nissan e.DAMS	+35.307
12	10	André Lotterer	GER	TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team	+35.508
13	25	Jean-Éric Vergne	FRA	DS Techeetah	+36.057
14	9	Alexander Sims	GBR	Mahindra Racing	+40.345
15	23	Oliver Turvey	GBR	NIO 333 FE Team	+41.293
16	29	Robin Frijns	NED	Envision Racing	+44.023
17	30	Dan Ticktum	GBR	NIO 333 FE Team	+51.947
18	94	Edoardo Mortara	CHE	ROKIT Venturi Racing	+1:18.796
19	99	Sérgio Sette Câmara	BRZ	Dragon/Penske Autosport	DNF
20	3	Antonio Giovinazzi	ITA	Dragon/Penske Autosport	DNF
21	33	Oliver Rowland	GBR	Mahindra Racing	DNF
22	11	Sam Bird	GBR	TCS Jaguar Racing	DNF