Vergne extends championship lead with Swiss E-Prix win

Techeetah driver Jean-Eric Vergne survived a tense battle with Jaguar Racing’s Mitch Evans to win the chaotic 2019 Swiss E-Prix in Bern. With a third race victory under this belt this season, Vergne has extended his championship lead to 32 points from Audi’s Lucas di Grassi and is in a strong position going into the double-header season finale in New York next month.

The start of the race saw Mahindra Racing's Pascal Wehrlein and Geox Dragon's Maximilian Gunther collide, causing a massive eight car pile-up and bringing out the red flag. The incident helped some of the drivers gain position as they were able to avoid the pile-up, including di Grassi, who gained eight places after starting all the way down from 19^th. However, after a 40 minute red flag period, the race was re-started with the drivers slotting into their starting grid order, wiping out di Grassi’s advantage.

Out at front, Vergne held on to his lead after the re-start, but he had Evans right on his tail. Evans made several overtaking attempts, but was unable to find a way past Vergne. Just when it seemed like that battle had died down, it started raining with just two minutes to go, giving Evans the opportunity to close back up to Vergne. Sebastien Buemi and Andre Lotterer also joined in on the fight, making it a four-way scrap for the race win. However, Vergne was able to survive the pressure and won the race 1.25 secs ahead of Evans, with Buemi taking 3^rd place.

Lotterer had charged up the order to finish 4^th, but he was handed a drive-through penalty after the race – which converted to a 22 second penalty – for exiting the pitlane when the exit light was red. This dropped him to 14^th place and more crucially, resulted in him losing 12 points. As a result, he’s now fourth in the overall standings, 44 points adrift of his team-mate Vergne.

Lotterer’s penalty promoted Sam Bird to 4^th place, ahead of Gunther. Daniel Abt was able to fend off a late-race charge from Alex Lynn to finish 6^th. Felipe Massa took 8^th place for Venturi, while di Grassi was able to make his way up to 9^th place to clinch two points. HWA’s Stoffel Vandoorne rounded up the top 10.

Mahindra Endured a difficult race – while Wehrlein was able to continue after his opening lap accident, he had to eventually retire from the race as his car stopped on track with just over 25 minutes to go. The team’s other driver, Jerome d’Ambrosio was handed a drive-through penalty for forcing Robin Frijns into a spin on the opening lap, and he could only salvage a 13^th place finish.

Results

POS	DRIVER	TEAM	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	Jean-Eric Vergne	DS Techeetah	DS	31	1h25m26.873s	-
2	Mitch Evans	Jaguar	Jaguar	31	1h25m27.033s	0.160s
3	Sebastien Buemi	e.dams	Nissan	31	1h25m27.593s	0.720s
4	Sam Bird	Virgin	Audi	31	1h25m29.869s	2.996s
5	Maximilian Gunther	Dragon	Penske	31	1h25m31.498s	4.625s
6	Daniel Abt	Audi	Audi	31	1h25m33.803s	6.930s
7	Alex Lynn	Jaguar	Jaguar	31	1h25m36.845s	9.972s
8	Felipe Massa	Venturi	Venturi	31	1h25m39.183s	12.310s
9	Lucas di Grassi	Audi	Audi	31	1h25m39.946s	13.073s
10	Stoffel Vandoorne	HWA	Venturi	31	1h25m40.259s	13.386s
11	Alexander Sims	BMW	BMW	31	1h25m41.587s	14.714s
12	Antonio Felix da Costa	BMW	BMW	31	1h25m45.790s	18.917s
13	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Mahindra	Mahindra	31	1h25m48.745s	21.872s
14	Andre Lotterer	DS Techeetah	DS	31	1h25m49.979s	23.106s
15	Tom Dillmann	NIO	NIO	31	1h26m06.957s	40.084s
16	Oliver Turvey	NIO	NIO	31	1h26m13.495s	46.622s
17	Gary Paffett	HWA	Venturi	31	1h26m49.385s	1m22.512s
-	Jose Maria Lopez	Dragon	Penske	31	1h25m41.144s	Disqualified
-	Oliver Rowland	e.dams	Nissan	21	1h11m49.736s	Retirement
-	Pascal Wehrlein	Mahindra	Mahindra	11	55m22.173s	Retirement
-	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi	Venturi	5	47m42.561s	Retirement
-	Robin Frijns	Virgin	Audi	0	-	Retirement

 

from Autocar India - News http://bit.ly/2Liqz2X