Cassidy wins in Monaco from ninth, takes Formula E points lead

Envision Jaguar driver Nick Cassidy won a typically rambunctious Formula E race in Monaco, which finished under safety car.

Cassidy’s win, coming from ninth on the grid, gave him the Formula E points lead, in what was the first lead change at the top of the standings since the second round in Diriyah. Erstwhile championship leader Pascal Wehrlein (Porsche) had a muted and energy-starved drive, and only scored one belatedly inherited point despite attrition through the pack.

A Nissan powertrain 1-2-3 had held at the start, in the same position of the qualifying results with Jake Hughes leading for McLaren over the works Nissans of Sacha Fenestraz and Norman Nato, but the front pack was predictably jumbled big-time as most rushed to get their two attack mode activations out of the way before even the halfway point.

As that halfway point was reached, form man Cassidy was sat up in first courtesy of an aggressive early charge, him and the fellow Jaguar of Mitch Evans pacing the race from up front.

Evans was told around that time to avoid overtaking Cassidy but on lap 21 of 29 he was given the command to attack the green Envision machine.

Just a lap later, however, the safety car was triggered by the damaged Maserati of Maximilian Guenther being left parked up at Massenet.

Günther 💥 Ticktum

This is how the race ended for the Maserati MSG Racing driver and brought out the Safety Car 🚨 #MonacoEPrix pic.twitter.com/pd7I55yDJ7

— ABB FIA Formula E World Championship (@FIAFormulaE) May 6, 2023

Guenther had tried to work his way around the damaged NIO 333 of Dan Ticktum for sixth – Ticktum having crunched up his front wing against Fenestraz’s Nissan moments before – but was caught out by a Beau Rivage block from the Briton and left with a wrecked car.

The restart soon followed, and with the safety car period proving insufficient for the planned 29-lap race distance to be added to, it set up an effectively flat out run to the finish.

But that showdown ended anticlimactically, with a crash between Evans’ team-mate Sam Bird and Nico Mueller at Ste Devote – Bird tipping Mueller’s Abt Mahindra into the wall – bringing out the safety car again, this time to end the competitive portion of the race.

Jake Dennis, who continues to either finish on the podium or non-score this season, did the former in his Andretti Porsche in third, while Fenestraz picked up the Nissan works team’s best finish of the season yet in fourth.

Poleman Hughes took fifth for Nissan-powered McLaren, with Ticktum grabbing a sixth place for NIO 333 despite the damage.

DS Penske duo Jean-Eric Vergne and Stoffel Vandoorne had started from the back after having their qualifying times scratched off due to a tyre pressure infringement, but made their way to the points, either side of eighth-placed Sebastien Buemi (Envision Jaguar).

Bird was 10th on the road followed by Wehrlein, but a penalty for the Mueller incident dropped Bird outside the points and let Wehrlein at least salvage one. Edoardo Mortara – who spent a bunch of the race effectively without a front wing after Maserati team-mate Guenther had darted to the right ahead of him at the hotel hairpin to avoid slamming into Hughes and helped Mortara to the wall instead – followed them over the line.

Dennis’ team-mate Andre Lotterer had recorded his best qualifying since the season opener, but any hope of turning 10th on the grid into points was extinguished as early as the second lap as he spun out following contact with Rene Rast exiting the Antony Noghes corner.

Rast himself then had further contact of his own and dropped way to the back, as did Mahindra’s Oliver Rowland, who had gained six positions at the start but then had his race seemingly undone when he clobbered into Mortara at the Nouvelle Chicane.

Also effectively ruled out of contention as a result of various incidents were Antonio Felix da Costa (Porsche), with a right rear puncture, and Nato.

Race Results

Driver Standings