From 18 pilots to 14. The list of candidates to be the first Formula E World Champion has been minimally reduced after the first race of the Berlin ePrix. All in all, Saturday’s run at Tempelhof Airport has served to reinforce the candidacy of the Brazilian Lucas Di Grassi after his triumph with the Audi e-tron FE07. The pilot of the German firm has narrowly beaten Edo Mortara, second also now in the general. For its part, Mitch Evans has completed the podium from a career that still leaves Nyck de Vries as the leader of the championship.
Jean-Eric Vergne asserted his pole position to retain first position ahead of António Félix Da Costa. Nor did Lucas Di Grassi have any problems securing third place on a fairly clean start that left very few changes in position. In fact, as if there were a non-aggression pact, the first ten minutes of the race passed with great calm, without attacks and maintaining the distances. Maybe the use of a single eight minute ‘attack mode’ as a variable of this first race of the Berlin ePrix invited caution when choosing the moment of its activation.
André Lotterer and Alex Sims were the first to activate the ‘attack mode’, generating the first changes of position, although it was outside the ‘top 10’. Next, the two Nissan drivers passed through the slow activation zone, in a maneuver that ended with a touch with Pascal Wehrlein. The German suffered a puncture, a situation that mortgaged any option of a good result. A mishap that occurred almost in parallel to the second race incident, since Sam Bird saw how his Jaguar stayed on the track. Given the position of the British Jaguar, the Safety Car made an appearance.
History repeated itself as the Safety Car left and Jean-Eric Vergne had no problem retaining the first position. ahead of António Félix Da Costa. In fact, the top six positions remained unchanged, while behind René Rast managed to climb to seventh place taking advantage of an optimal moment to activate the ‘attack mode’. Still, Rast’s good work was overshadowed by the movements at the head of the group. In fact, António Félix Da Costa took the lead in the face of Jean-Eric Vergne’s problems. The Frenchman fell to fifth place in the blink of an eye, putting Lucas Di Grassi in second place.
René Rast with his activation of the ‘attack mode’ at the perfect moment sneaked into third position, cementing the ‘joint’ attack by Audi drivers on the new leader. In a blink of an eye, Lucas Di Grassi and René Rast beat António Félix Da Costa. The Portuguese was also overtaken by Edo Mortara, since the activation of the ‘attack mode’ played in favor of the Venturi rider at this stage of the race. In fact, Mortara was positioned as the new leader after surpassing René Rast, taking advantage of the activation of Lucas Di Grassi. Norman Nato was second.
With Mortara, Nato and Di Grassi forming the new provisional podium of the race, all with the ‘attack mode’ activated, the race entered a critical phase with eight of the nine top drivers with the extra power mode in action. René Rast had to live with all of them behind his superb strategy, which in turn caused the three leading riders to have enough pace to break out and break the pack. I could not maintain the fourth position and René Rast lost positions until falling to seventh place while Lucas Di Grassi surpassed Norman Nato for second place.
Lucas Di Grassi assaulted the leadership of Edo Mortara taking advantage of the last seconds of his ‘attack mode’, with ten minutes to go to the end of the race. Mitch Evans was third, while Norman Nato was forced to fight for fourth with a Jake Dennis who almost appeared out of nowhere to take fifth ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne and António Félix Da Costa. Thus a final two-way duel was drawn, with Di Grassi and Mortara fighting for the win and Evans, Nato, Dennis, Vergne and Da Costa bidding for third place.
However, there was no time for more changes. Lucas Di Grassi ensured the victory, thus feeding his chances of achieving the title. Edo Mortara took second place, a result that places him just behind the leader Nyck de Vries. In a hard work, Mitch Evans secured third place ahead of Norman Nato and Jake Dennis. Despite starting on pole, Jean-Eric Vergne had to settle for sixth position, just ahead of his teammate António Félix Da Costa. The ‘top 10’ was closed by the trio of local pilots formed by Maximilian Günther, René Rast and André Lotterer.