FORMULA E

Instead, Wehrlein finished fourth behind teammate da Costa after an impressive drive of his own from 15th place at the end of the opening lap.

Sergio Sette Camara finished a strong fifth for NIO 333, while Oliver Rowland bagged a strong haul of points for Mahindra in sixth place.

Rowland even attempted an ambitious move over Buemi for third place on the outside of the hairpin in the closing stages of the race, but he ran wide and instead lost momentum that left him sixth at the finish.

Norman Nato scored his first points on the year in seventh, with Stoffel Vandoorne (DS Penske), Andre Lotterer and Edoardo Mortara (Maserati MSG) completing the points scorers.

Season

The result means Porsche’s Pascal Werhlein extends his lead at the top of the Drivers’ Standings, with an 18-point gap over Avalanche Andretti’s Jake Dennis who finished outside of the points for the first time this season.

The victory for Vergne lifts the Frenchman up into third in the standings, level on points with Envision’s Seb Buemi.

Speaking after his first victory of the season, Jean-Eric Vergne said: “I am obviously very happy with this victory! It’s great for the team to get back to the top after three tough races, and to come back to everyone with a win after working so hard on our understanding of the car. Clearly, we have made good progress. We have to keep up this momentum but, to tell you the truth, I’m quite confident because I think we still have a lot of room for improvement. It’s up to us to keep working hard to get more results like this!”

Sam Bird commented on his incident which retired both Jaguar TCS Racing cars after the race: “I’m incredibly sorry to all of the team, Mitch and the other driver’s races that I ruined today. We have a really strong car and I made a mistake which cost everybody. I know how hard everyone has worked and I hope I can make it up to everyone in Cape Town.”

The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship heads to Cape Town on 25th February, with this issue of the EV Powered Magazine going to press before that race. The next edition of the magazine will therefore feature a report of Round 6 of the Championship in Sao Paulo, which takes place on March 25th.