Mitch Evans (Jaguar) and Jake Dennis (Avalanche Andretti) won both Formula E races in Rome at the weekend. Sunday’s race could have been a preliminary decision in the world championship – Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein only has a theoretical chance of winning the title.
In the 13th race of the season on Saturday, Jaguar works driver Mitch Evans managed a double hat-trick: Since the driver from New Zealand had already won both races in Rome in 2022, it was his third victory in a row in the Eternal City. And on Saturday he also managed to start from pole position, win the race and set the fastest race lap in the process. With 25 points for the race win, three points for first place on the grid and one point for the fastest lap, Evans scored the maximum possible haul of 29 points.
In the race, Evans’ team-mate Sam Bird in the second works Jaguar was the first to take centre stage, however, the British driver lost control of his car on a bump in a fast corner, hit the wall and came to a halt in the middle of the track in a blind corner. Some of the following drivers were able to narrowly avoid the collision, but Sebastien Buemi in the Envision-Jaguar and Edoardo Mortara in the Maserati could not. In addition, there were further subsequent collisions, resulting in further interruptions. All drivers survived the pile-up unharmed.
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After the 41-minute interruption, only 14 of the 22 Gen3 cars were able to resume the race. For Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein, who had been leading the championship for a long time, the race interruption was a stroke of luck: After the damage to his race car, he had already fallen far behind and had no chance of scoring points. The restart in 12th position brought him back into the points, and in the end, he crossed the line in seventh place. After a time penalty, however, he only managed to take ninth place, two points behind.
However, Wehrlein was not able to intervene in the fight for the top spot. There it was very close between Evans and the two top drivers in the championship, Nick Cassidy in the customer Jaguar of the Envision team and Jake Dennis in the customer Porsche of the Andretti team. Dennis, however, did not have the best energy management on Saturday and dropped back to fourth in the closing minutes. Evans won Nick Cassidy (Envision) and Maximilian Günther (Maserati). In addition, Nico Müller in 6th place ensured Abt-Cupra’s best season result so far.
On Sunday, Jake Dennis managed to improve his energy management and overtook Evans’ hat-trick (or often called a “grand slam” in racing parlance) the previous day: pole position, victory and the fastest lap in the 14th race of the season. Second place was a surprise finish for Norman Nato in the Nissan – it was the first podium of the season for the Frenchman after Nissan had been uncompetitive on many tracks in the first Gen3 season. Third was Sam Bird in the Jaguar, who contested the race in a spare car built overnight – his company car was a total loss after Saturday’s accident.
Not only because of Dennis’ maximum points haul, Sunday’s race in Rome was possibly a preliminary decision in the world championship: In the opening phase of the race, there was an accident between Saturday’s winner Evans and Nick Cassidy, who was leading the championship at that time. Evans immediately retired from the race (and probably from the championship fight), Cassidy brought his damaged Envision-Jaguar to the finish in 14th place, but remained without points.
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Ahead of the Formula E season finale on 29 and 30 July in London, Jake Dennis leads the drivers’ standings with 195 points ahead of Nick Cassidy (171). Dennis, therefore, goes into the last two races of the season with 24 points ahead of Cassidy, 44 points ahead of Evans and 49 points ahead of Wehrlein. As there will be two races with a maximum of 2x 29 points, Dennis is far from being sure of the drivers’ title – one failure and Cassidy is back on the podium. For Evans and Wehrlein, however, there are only theoretical chances.
Envision Racing enters the final as the leading team with 253 points ahead of Porsche (239) and Jaguar (228).
fiaformulae.com (Saturday race report), fiaformulae.com (results Saturday), fiaformulae.com (Sunday race report), fiaformulae.com (results Sunday), fiaformulae.com (driver rankings), fiaformulae.com (team rankings)
Keyword: Evans & Dennis win Formula E races in Rome