Formula E

Da Costa clinches Formula E title early, Vergne wins race

by Lucy Morson
7 min read

Antonio Felix da Costa claimed his first Formula E title with two rounds to spare at the fourth Berlin E-Prix, with DS Techeetah executing a commanding race to score a 1-2 and the teams’ championship.

While outgoing champion Jean-Eric Vergne crossed the line first to win the race, Da Costa followed home in second.

Vergne had started the race on pole and defended from da Costa at the start, but DS Techeetah choreographed a swap following the first use of attack mode which let da Costa into the lead and allowed Vergne to conserve energy through the 45-minute race – held in damp conditions on the traditional Tempelhof layout.

In the final portion of the race, da Costa cleanly allowed Vergne back past him in order to take the race win – by which time a championship victory was secured as neither Nissan car of Sebastien Buemi or Oliver Rowland managed to launch an attack to trouble DS Techeetah.

Buemi finished the race in third, while Rowland was just pipped to fourth by Mercedes’ Nyck de Vries – who overtook the Nissan on the very last lap of the race.

Lucas di Grassi ran a relatively solitary race for Audi to finish in sixth, ahead of Mitch Evans for Jaguar. Evans had enjoyed a long battle for seventh with Andre Lotterer and Alex Lynn.

Lynn had initially looked set for a promising race and run as high as third, coming through from his seventh-place starting grid position, but reported a problem with the dash on his Mahindra meaning he dropped back and just clung onto ninth place.

Felipe Massa completed the top 10 for ROKiT Venturi, ahead of Sam Bird who charged through the field for Envision Virgin from 17th place and the Mercedes of Stoffel Vandoorne, who had started only 20th.

The race was interrupted briefly by a single safety car period at the start when Saturday’s race winner Maximilian Guenther tangled with the NIO333 of Oliver Turvey – crashing and putting the BMW i Andretti driver immediately out of the race.

Guenther was deemed to be at fault for that incident by the stewards after an in-race investigation and has subsequently incurred a three-place grid drop for the next race – run on the extended Tempelhof circuit on Wednesday evening.

Yesterday’s runner-up Robin Frijns failed to take the start of the race at all owing to a battery issue on his Envision Virgin car.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Car Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Jean-Eric Vergne DS Techeetah DS E-Tense FE20 37 46m24.803s 1m08.621s 0 29
2 António Félix da Costa DS Techeetah DS E-Tense FE20 37 +0.497s 1m08.577s 0 19
3 Sébastien Buemi Nissan e.DAMS Nissan IM02 37 +1.392s 1m08.799s 0 15
4 Nyck de Vries Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team Mercedes-Benz EQ Silver Arrow 01 37 +3.791s 1m08.895s 0 12
5 Oliver Rowland Nissan e.DAMS Nissan IM02 37 +5.018s 1m08.915s 0 10
6 Lucas Di Grassi Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler Formula E Team Audi e-tron FE06 37 +9.805s 1m09.02s 0 8
7 Mitch Evans Panasonic Jaguar Racing Jaguar I-Type IV 37 +14.814s 1m09.081s 0 6
8 André Lotterer TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team Porsche 99X Electric 37 +15.755s 1m09.033s 0 4
9 Alex Lynn Mahindra Racing Mahindra M6Electro 37 +21.001s 1m08.947s 0 2
10 Felipe Massa ROKiT Venturi Racing Mercedes-Benz EQ Silver Arrow 01 37 +22.809s 1m09.206s 0 1
11 Sam Bird Envision Virgin Racing Audi e-tron FE06 37 +22.911s 1m08.556s 0 0
12 Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team Mercedes-Benz EQ Silver Arrow 01 37 +23.388s 1m08.828s 0 0
13 Alexander Sims BMW i Andretti Motorsport BMW iFE.20 37 +23.575s 1m09.207s 0 0
14 Edoardo Mortara ROKiT Venturi Racing Mercedes-Benz EQ Silver Arrow 01 37 +23.889s 1m08.88s 0 0
15 Jérôme d'Ambrosio Mahindra Racing Mahindra M6Electro 37 +23.914s 1m08.778s 0 0
16 René Rast Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler Formula E Team Audi e-tron FE06 37 +24.381s 1m09.08s 0 0
17 James Calado Panasonic Jaguar Racing Jaguar I-Type IV 37 +26.6s 1m09.152s 0 0
18 Daniel Abt NIO 333 FE Team NIO FE-005 37 +29.121s 1m09.207s 0 0
19 Neel Jani TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team Porsche 99X Electric 37 +29.527s 1m09.383s 0 0
20 Nico Müller Geox Dragon Penske EV-4 37 +34.431s 1m09.291s 0 0
21 Sérgio Sette Câmara Geox Dragon Penske EV-4 37 +36.315s 1m08.755s 0 0
22 Oliver Turvey NIO 333 FE Team NIO FE-005 37 +1m01.473s 1m09.916s 0 0
Maximilian Günther BMW i Andretti Motorsport BMW iFE.20 0 DNF 0s 0 0
Robin Frijns Envision Virgin Racing Audi e-tron FE06 0 DNS 0s 0 0
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