E-Prix Rome: Points for all Swiss 🎥
BENEFICIARIES OF PENALTIES After Sébastien Buemi was the only Swiss in the top ten in Rome on Saturday, Edoardo Mortara and Nico Müller also scored points in the fourth Formula E world championship round on Sunday. The highlights of Race 1 in Rome show some turbulent scenes. On a damp track, both Saturday's qualifying [...]
The highlights of Race 1 in Rome show some turbulent scenes.
On a damp track, both Saturday's and Sunday's qualifying were pretty tricky. Mercedes driver Stoffel Vandoorne turned out to be the fastest on both days.
Four winners in four world championship rounds
In the first WEC race, the Belgian was unable to take advantage of pole position after being hit by chaser André Lotterer (Porsche) and later retiring. The other day, the former McLaren GP driver was only on the second row of the grid, but soon moved into the lead to celebrate a convincing victory. Not even a late safety car phase, during which the field closed ranks, could jeopardize this victory.
In Saturday's race, two-time Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne won in the DS E-Tense SE21 ahead of the two Jaguar drivers Sam Bird and Mitch Evans. In fifth place behind Robin Frijns in the Audi e-tron FE07 from Envision Virgin Racing, Sébastian Buemi in the Nissan Ariya IM02 scored his first points of the season.
Ups and downs for Mortara
Edoardo Mortara had to start from the very back of the grid in qualifying after a defect on his Venturi Mercedes forced him to retire early. His rehabilitation followed the next day with fourth place, to which he moved up after the disqualification of his teammate Norman Nato, who finished third.
After his second place in Diriyah and the twelve points from Rome, the Geneva native is the best-placed Swiss in the World Championship in sixth place. Leading the Driver World Championship Table of Sam Bird, although the Briton conceded his second zero of the season in the second race in Rome.
Jaguar at the top of the table
Unlike in Formula 1, no title favorite is emerging in Formula E. Pascal Wehrlein (Porsche) was the only one of the 24 drivers to finish in the points in all four races, and he also made it onto the podium for the first time in Rome 2 after Nato's exclusion.
Jaguar Racing leads the World Team Championship ahead of two-time season winners Mercedes-EQ and defending champions DS Techeetah thanks to Bird and Evans' one-two finish.
Happy ending for Nico Müller
An accident involving several cars and the subsequent time penalties pushed Nico Müller up to a not undeserved ninth place on Sunday. After starting ninth, the Bernese driver was in eighth position after six of the 23 laps before Sam Bird forced him into the emergency exit in a borderline maneuver. He then found himself in P19. On the previous day, a pit drive-through penalty meant that he could not finish higher than 14th.
Swiss premiere at a world championship race
Sébastien Buemi also benefited from the late retirements and the corrected classification after crossing the finish line on Sunday, but only partially. Because he also received a five-second penalty, a theoretical eighth place became a tenth place. At least he got a world championship point for it.
This means that three Swiss drivers have finished in the top ten of a Formula E race. This happened once before at the penultimate race in Berlin last August with Mortara, Jani and Buemi and now for the first time at a round of the world championship of the electric racing series.
The highlights from Sunday's race show how it was possible for all three Swiss to end up in the championship points.
Results E-Prix Rome Race 1 Results E-Prix Rome Race 1
