Sao Paulo ePrix Race Review
Delight for Jaguar in inaugural Sao Paulo ePrix
Mitch Evans took home a brilliant victory for Jaguar TCS Racing ahead of Envision Racing’s Nick Cassidy (powered by Jaguar powertrains) and his teammate Sam Bird as the top three were separated by just 5-tenths of a second.
The Most Notable Moments
Stoffel Vandoorne finally took his first Pole position of the season earlier on in the day and he got a great start to comfortably lead out of the turn 1 and 2 chicane. Meanwhile, Edoardo Mortara’s terrible start to the season continued as he broke his front wing when running in P4 whilst Norman Nato made a terrible mistake that saw him drive into the NEOM McLaren which saw the Frenchman retire after just 3 corners. Sebastian Buemi was then involved in a collision on Lap 2 after he drove into the back of Maximilian Gunther whilst Pascal Wehrlein was climbing up the field after starting 18th on the grid. Race leader Stoffel Vandoorne was the first man to enter attack mode meaning Porsche’s Antonio Felix da Costa now found himself in the lead. On Lap 7, Nissan’s Sacha Fenestraz collided with the wall bringing out the first Safety Car of the evening. When the race got back underway on Lap 12, Vandoorne was leading ahead of Evans, Cassidy and da Costa. A lap later, da Costa had despatched the two Jaguar-powered cars to move back up into second place. On Lap 14, madness occurred as there were 4 lead changes in just 1 lap. Meanwhile, Jake Dennis, who was running in P10, got clobbered from behind by NIO 333’s Dan Ticktum resulting in the British driver being forced to retire from the race and once again the Safety Car was back on the track.
The race restarted on Lap 19 and after everyone in the top four had taken their second attack mode, the order was now Nick Cassidy from Antonio Felix da Costa, Mitch Evans and Stoffel Vandoorne. On Lap 25, da Costa made a terrible error, locking up and missing the first corner completely resulting in him dropping from third down to seventh. Pascal Wehrlein, now up to 7th place, asked if he could overtake his teammate whilst in attack mode, but the team interestingly told the Championship leader to hold position behind his Portuguese teammate. After 31 racing laps, we now entered the 4 additional laps due to all of the Safety Car stoppages and at this point, Envision’s Cassidy was still leading ahead of Jaguar’s Evans and Sam Bird in the other Jaguar was also catching quickly. Mitch Evans was then able to pass his fellow Kiwi the next lap whilst Sam Bird was trying everything to get past Cassidy as well. On the final lap of the race, Nick Cassidy tried to overtake Mitch Evans going into the penultimate corner, but Evans held on to take his first race win of the season.
Drivers who Impressed
Mitch Evans drove a super race to take a much-needed victory in Sao Paulo. Nick Cassidy is also driving really well right now; he’s finished on the podium in each of the last three rounds. Sam Bird recovered from 10th on the grid to take a very good podium for Jaguar TCS Racing whilst Stoffel Vandoorne, despite dropping from 1st to 6th in the race, can take positives as this was by far his best weekend as a DS Penske driver. Pascal Wehrlein drove really well to finish 7th after a disastrous Qualifying. Robin Frijns also deserves a mention as he recovered from 20th to finish 14th which is pretty solid as it was his first proper race of the season.
Drivers who Struggled
Andre Lotterer may have gained 9 places in the race, but he still had a pretty disappointing weekend overall. The same has to be said for the Mahindra duo of home favourite Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Rowland. Both NIO's struggled for pace all weekend and Dan Ticktum can have no excuses for ruining Jake Dennis’ race. Edoardo Mortara, who qualified so well, had another stinker of an ePrix whilst both Nissan’s made stupid errors that ended their races early.
Overall Race Results
Mitch Evans: 53:25.536
Nick Cassidy: +0.284
Sam Bird: +0.507
Antonio Felix da Costa: +3.487
Jean-Eric Vergne: +4.042
Stoffel Vandoorne: +4.576
Pascal Wehrlein: +5.659
Jake Hughes: +6.141
Rene Rast: +7.403
Sebastian Buemi: +7.976
Maximilian Gunther: +15.192
Andre Lotterer: +15.345
Lucas di Grassi: +19.247
Robin Frijns: +20.751
Oliver Rowland: +21.465
Sergio Sette Camara: +31.514
Dan Ticktum: +34.398
Edoardo Mortara: DNF
Nico Muller: DNF
Jake Dennis: DNF
Sacha Fenestraz: DNF
Norman Nato: DNF
Drivers’ Standings:
Pascal Wehrlein: 86pts
Jake Dennis: 62pts
Nick Cassidy: 61pts
Jean-Eric Vergne: 60pts
Antonio Felix da Costa: 58pts
Teams’ Standings:
TAG Heuer Porsche: 144pts
Envision Racing: 103pts
Jaguar TCS Racing: 83pts
DS Penske: 82pts
Avalanche Andretti: 80pts
