Written by Elisabeth Brown, Edited & Photos by Umut Yelbasi
A hard fought round 14 at the ExCel center resulted in a top three of Lucas di Grassi, Jake Dennis and Nyck de Vries. With the win today, di Grassi becomes the Formula E driver with the most victories, saying: “it’s been a long eight years and I can just be proud of where we started, where we are and the future – well, I have a few more years, but for the future for these guys and for the younger generation in Formula E is going to go even better.”
Di Grassi managed to pass Dennis for the lead with eight minutes and one lap to go, already having used his final ATTACK MODE. Evans battled hard with an ATTACK MODE still in hand, but di Grassi had strong race pace and timed the use of his FANBOOST perfectly, giving him plenty of margin ahead of Dennis to the chequered flag.
Although Dennis didn’t bring home a second win here in London, he was pleased with the result. He labeled the race as “relentless” and “one of the most challenging” ones he’s ever done in his career. Knowing he’s not in the title fight, he said “the wins and the podiums mean everything for me” rather than the number of points. The Brit had another strong race in front of his home crowd, and this will undoubtedly inject him with confidence going into the final two rounds of the season in Seoul.
To round off the podium places, de Vries brought the car to a strong third place finish, a solid turnaround from being demoted off the podium due to a penalty yesterday. He said today’s race felt “a bit like revenge,” feeling pleased to execute a very strong race on both his and the team’s side.
Elsewhere, Dragon scored its first points due to a strong drive to P9 by Sergio Sette Camara. When describing his race, he said “it’s so easy to give up before the lights even go out. Typically we don’t move forward in the race…we’ve always finished behind (where) we started. It was all about keeping your hopes up, thinking ‘okay, London is a race that suits our car, maybe we can still make something out of this,’ and that’s exactly what ended up happening.”
There were seven non-finishers, most notably Mitch Evans, who was up in fourth place at one point. Unfortunately a technical problem late in the race ended his 14th round early and knocked him back in his fight for the title.
Stoffel Vandoorne, who finished fourth after starting 13th on the grid, goes into the final two rounds in Seoul with a 36-point lead over Evans. Could that be enough of a margin for him to secure a drivers’ championship win? The only way to find out will be on track in South Korea in two weeks’ time, so be sure to follow closely to see how the cards fall.
