Mitch Evans secured his second consecutive win and Jaguar’s first ever one-two victory in Berlin after a breathless race where the lead changed 23 times.
Evans passed Sebastien Buemi late in the race to take the lead, pulling a small gap to the Envision driver before Sam Bird passed Buemi for second on the final lap. Maximilian Gunther claimed third after beating Buemi on the run to the chequered flag.At the start, pole winner Sebastien Buemi was immediately challenged by Stoffel Vandoorne who got a great launch off the line but had to back off to avoid being squeezed between Buemi and Sam Bird, who had started alongside on the front row. That allowed fourth-placed Dan Ticktum to sweep around the outside of all of them around the long first corner and through into the lead.
The NIO driver led from Buemi, Bird and Vandoorne. Ticktum and Buemi both activated their first minute’s worth of Attack Mode on lap three, but gained their positions back when Bird and Vandoorne followed suit a lap later. On lap five, Ticktum and Buemi took Attack Mode for the second time in the opening laps for their remaining three minutes, handing the lead back to Bird with Jake Dennis inheriting second. Bird and Dennis would also take Attack Mode soon after, which allowed Ticktum back into the lead.
Bird used the extra power of Attack Mode to move passed Buemi and Vandoorne before slipping past Ticktum on the pit straight at the end of lap eight to take the lead of the race. Vandoorne also followed the Jaguar into second place, but then inherited the lead when Bird appeared to run wide at turn six.
The race restarted on lap 14, with Dennis leading the field from Mortara and Buemi, the highest placed driver with no Attack Mode time remaining, in third. Dennis took his final three minutes of Attack Mode on lap 16, putting Mortara back into the lead, until the Maserati took his Attack Mode on the following lap. This put Jaguar’s Mitch Evans out front, the only driver in the top nine who had not taken any of his Attack Mode approaching the midway point of the race.
Evans lasted one lap in the lead before taking his Attack Mode, dropping him down to fourth. Buemi moved back into the lead, before Maximilian Gunther passed him into turn one to put Maserati back into the lead. Yet again, the lead changed when Gunther took Attack Mode.
Then a heavy crash between Ticktum and Vandoorne on the exit of the second corner destroyed both cars and collected Jake Hughes and Norman Nato in the process. The Safety Car was deployed for a second time, with Evans leading the field after passing Buemi for the lead mere seconds before the race was neutralised.
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The race restarted again on lap 23, with Evans heading Buemi and Gunther. Evans took his final minute of Attack Mode and put Buemi into the lead, before Gunther passed the Envision to retake the lead. Evans used his extra power to move back up, eventually passing the Maserati into turn nine to retake the lead. Team mate Bird soon demoted Gunther to third, before Buemi also moved by to take third place.
Bird lost the lead to Buemi at the start of lap 36, with the two Jaguars of Bird and Evans content to sit behind the Envision driver into the closing laps. Both Jaguars put Buemi under pressure on lap 39, with Evans slipping by his team mate into second place before taking the lead from Buemi at the start of lap 40.
Three additional laps were added due to the Safety Car interventions, with Evans, Buemi and Bird all on eight-per-cent of usable energy remaining. Evans began to pull away slightly from Buemi, who came under intense pressure from Bird in third.
Evans held enough of a gap over the final lap to take the chequered flag, with Bird diving past Buemi at turn six on the final lap to secure a first ever one-two victory for Jaguar. Gunther beat Buemi over the line to take the final podium position in third, with Nick Cassidy fourth in the second Envision.
Pascal Wehrlein finished sixth ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne, with Andre Lotterer demoted to eighth after a five second time penalty for causing a collision earlier in the race. Mortara and Oliver Rowland completed the top ten.
Formula E Berlin Eprix race results
Pos. | No. | Driver | Team | Car |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 9 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar | Jaguar I-Type 6 |
2 | 10 | Sam Bird | Jaguar | Jaguar I-Type 6 |
3 | 7 | Maximilian Guenther | Maserati | Maserati Tipo Folgore |
4 | 16 | Sebastien Buemi | Envision | Jaguar I-Type 6 |
5 | 37 | Nick Cassidy | Envision | Jaguar I-Type 6 |
6 | 94 | Pascal Wehrlein | Porsche | Porsche 99X Electric Gen3 |
7 | 25 | Jean-Eric Vergne | DS Penske | DS E-TENSE FE23 |
8 | 36 | Andre Lotterer | Andretti | Porsche 99X Electric Gen3 |
9 | 48 | Edoardo Mortara | Maserati | Maserati Tipo Folgore |
10 | 8 | Oliver Rowland | Mahindra | Mahindra M9Electro |
11 | 11 | Lucas di Grassi | Mahindra | Mahindra M9Electro |
12 | 23 | Sacha Fenestraz | Nissan | Nissan e-4ORCE 04 |
13 | 17 | Norman Nato | Nissan | Nissan e-4ORCE 04 |
14 | 4 | Robin Frijns | Abt Cupra | Mahindra M9Electro |
15 | 51 | Nico Mueller | Abt Cupra | Mahindra M9Electro |
16 | 3 | Sergio Sette Camara | NIO 333 | NIO 333 ER9 |
17 | 58 | Rene Rast | McLaren | Nissan e-4ORCE 04 |
18 | 27 | Jake Dennis | Andretti | Porsche 99X Electric Gen3 |
19 | 13 | Antonio Felix da Costa | Porsche | Porsche 99X Electric Gen3 |
20 | 5 | Jake Hughes | McLaren | Nissan e-4ORCE 04 |
21 | 1 | Stoffel Vandoorne | DS Penske | DS E-TENSE FE23 |
22 | 33 | Dan Ticktum | NIO 333 | NIO 333 ER9 |
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SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
22nd April 2023, 15:40
That was a decent race, better than most on this track so far.
How Ticktum remains licensed to drive race cars I will never understand, completely ruined Stoffel’s race just by completely ignoring his surroundings. It was such a dumb mistake.
Oople
22nd April 2023, 16:36
That kid is a lot like Maldonado… Got speed to spare, but has genuinely zero spatial awareness and a lack of willingness to learn.
MichaelN
22nd April 2023, 17:24
Ticktum has money, and a lot of racing teams are desperate for money.
thegamer23
22nd April 2023, 22:17
Insane amounts of action, and the Jaguar 1-2 is good to tighten up the championship standings.
Pinak Ghosh (@pinakghosh)
23rd April 2023, 4:00
Something needs to be seriously thought about Formula E races. Nobody wants to take the lead in the first half of the race. This race race probably saw the maximum number of changes for the lead. Also, the attack mode area was way off….and I mean waaaay off the racing line and rejoin position was dangerous as the other drivers on the normal line were accelerating hard after a slow apex. But in all there were some winners and losers – Jaguar is doing a mega job and getting the results needed for the championship. Wehrlein kept the race clean to extend lead despite a poor qualifying. Maserati too had a solid race. Dennis lost the car under pressure and Vandoorne and Da Costa were unlucky. Mclaren needs better drivers and so does Nio.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
23rd April 2023, 8:27
@pinakghosh Yeah it’s the first FE race I’ve watched in a while, so I guess they aren’t all like this, but something definitely feels off when you see drivers actually backing out of the lead because they want to sit somewhere around 2nd to 4th all race. Then the attack mode is actually just a disadvantage that they want to get out of the way while losing as little as possible.
As a one off I guess it was ok, but I definitely wouldn’t want every race to look like this.
Oople
23rd April 2023, 11:03
I’m okay with FE races being like this – almost a Tour de France of the motorsport world. It provides a different sort of strategy and awareness to any other racing series.
As long as we don’t see this creep into F1 or WEC, etc. then I’m all for enjoying it in FE.