Formula E: Lucas Di Grassi pips Dennis to win London E-Prix

ROKiT Venturi’s Lucas Di Grassi spoilt the party for Jake Dennis as he secured the win in the final race of the London E-Prix double-header.

It was a back-to-back pole position for Avalanche Andretti’s Jake Dennis and would have been hoping to make it two wins from two in London, but Di Grassi had too much for the Brit and claimed his first win of the season.

It was a chaotic race from start to finish, with Mahindra’s Oliver Rowland and NIO’s Dan Ticktum bowing out of the race in the first lap. There was constant contact throughout the race, but Dennis and Di Grassi managed to stay ahead of all the drama and soon established their own race for first place.

In the last race before the final weekend of the season, all eyes were on the championship leaders, with Jaguar’s Mitch Evans, ROKiT Venturi’s Edoardo Mortara and championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne of Mercedes EQ all qualifying outside of the top ten.

DS Techeetah’s Jean-Éric Vergne, who struggled with the ExCel Circuit in the first round of the London E-Prix, had qualified in tenth and would have been hoping to make amends for the day before, but his race was over after just a couple of laps as he got caught up in an early skirmish.

The Frenchman’s race was over, and with that, so was his championship bid.

Vandoorne, Evans and Mortara had all began to surge up the field, with Evans eventually working his way up into fourth, helping to close the gap in the drivers’ standings to Vandoorne.

After the early chaos, the race had settled down and it soon became a matter of Attack Mode strategies, with each driver having to activate three separate 4-minute power boosts throughout the race.

Up front, Dennis had waited until Di Grassi had used all three of his Attack Mode’s before taking the decision to trigger his final boost. However, the Brit had failed to build a big enough gap to the lurking Brazilian, and even with the extra power, he was unable to match the pace of the ROKiT Venturi man.

Thanks to an extra push from the Fan Boost, Di Grassi was able to comfortably hold onto his lead, keeping Dennis at arm’s length as he desperately searched for a way to seal back-to-back wins in his home race.

As the race entered the closing stages, it was agony for Jaguar’s Mitch Evans as his car lost all power into Turn 12 and ran off track. Evans tried to get his car going again, but the damage was done and has he pulled into the pits, the Kiwi was visibly dejected as Vandoorne’s fourth place finish puts him almost out of reach in the championship.

The result means Vandoorne now has a healthy 36 point lead at the top of the drivers’ standings, with a maximum of 58 available from the final weekend in South Korea.

Evans remains in second place and will likely need two wins from two, and a catastrophic weekend from Vandoorne, to bring home the championship. Despite finishing in 13th Mortara remains in third place thanks to Jean-Éric Vergne being one of seven drivers to retire from the race.

The final weekend of Season 8 of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship will take place in Seoul, South Korea, on August 15th and 16th, where the winners of both the drivers’ championship and teams’ championship will be decided.