The champion has started the ‘Season Eight’ of Formula E where he closed the previous campaign, at the top of the podium. Nyck de Vries has scored the victory in the first race of the Ad-Diriyah ePrix after taking advantage of a Stoffel Vandoorne problem when activating the ‘attack mode’. Despite this incident, the Belgian finished second, completing the double for the Mercedes EQ team. For its part, Jake Dennis finished third in the Avalanche Andretti team car in a race in which he has completed a good job despite not being able to stop the Mercedes drivers.
Stoffel Vandoorne managed to sign a perfect exit to maintain the first position. Behind, Nyck de Vries was placed in the wake of his teammate after beating Jack Dennis in the first meters, while the Envision Racing drivers touched each other in the first corner, losing several positions. Lucas Di Grassi took advantage of this circumstance to sneak into sixth position, while Maximilian Günther took seventh place. Both the start and the first laps took place under a somewhat calm script, even if Lucas Di Grassi overtook Sam Bird for fifth place.
Lucas Di Grassi’s overtaking broke the leading pack in a certain way. The first four classified got a certain advantage over the Brazilian pilot himself. André Lotterer took advantage of the advantage over the Brazilian to go through the activation zone and use attack mode for the first time. Nyck de Vries and Jake Dennis imitated the Porsche driver one lap later to protect position, enjoying the additional 30 kW of power -250 kW in total- for three minutes. With everything, the race was neutralized shortly after.
RObin Frijns and Oliver Rowland starred in the first incident of the year after rolling against each other for several corners, a maneuver that ended with Rowland’s Mahindra against the barriers. The Safety Car made an appearance while the British car was withdrawn, although then it gave way to a critical phase of the race. Nyck de Vries took the lead of the race after overtaking Stoffel Vandoorne, since the Belgian driver failed to pass through the slow zone and correctly activate the ‘attack mode’ for the second time. The second time he did, using André Lotterer as a ‘barrier’ against his rivals.
In fact, Lotterer stopped Jake Dennis with a couple of maneuvers to the limit in which both pilots came to touch. Sam Bird joined the battle, while De Vries and Vandoorme put their foot down and achieved more than three seconds over their pursuers. A very important cushion when it comes to managing the energy during the last third of the race, a distance that grew even more when Jake Dennis returned to the charge to overtake André Lotterer without success. With everything, third time was the charm and Dennis managed to overtake the Porsche driver, with touch included, to place third.
With his advance Jake Dennis left the ‘toast’ to Lotterer, since the German came under pressure from Sam Bird, Lucas Di Grassi and Nick Cassidy. But nevertheless, a driving error by Bird led the Jaguar driver to lightly hit the barriers, which gave André Lotterer a few extra meters of advantage. The Porsche driver did not resist much despite everything and Sam Bird and Lucas Di Grassi realized Lotterer. New Zealander Nick Cassidy soon followed in the footsteps of both to place himself in sixth position.
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Once the five minutes and fifteen seconds derived from the Safety Car period have been added to the race time, the last eight minutes of the first heat of the Ad-Diriyah ePrix passed somewhat calmly in the leading group, although not behind. Edo Mortara, Mitch Evans, Jean-Eric Vergne and rookie Oliver Askew took André Lotterer out of the points zone in the blink of an eye. In turn, Mitch Evans managed to win eighth position from Vergne shortly before entering the additional lap that ended the race.
Nyck de Vries closed his great performance by winning the victory ahead of his teammate Stoffel Vandoorne. Eight seconds behind both crossed the finish line Jake Dennis, achieving Andretti’s first podium after separating his path from BMW. For his part, the British Sam Bird took fourth position, while Lucas Di Grassi conquered fifth place with the first of the Mercedes EQ Silver Arrow 02 from the Venturi team. Great debut for the Brazilian with his new structure.
Edo Mortara completed the good start for Venturi Racing after taking sixth place over the same finish after beating Nick Cassidy. Despite having a somewhat discreet performance, Jean-Eric Vergne took eighth place, while the ‘rookie’ Oliver Askew got his first points in Formula E by finishing ninth, all after overtaking Mitch Evans. Outside the points zone, the pair of Porsche drivers and the one from Nissan, in a bad beginning for two of the manufacturers called to be protagonists during this season.