Di Grassi handed Formula E win as Wehrlein disqualified

Lucas di Grassi was handed his first Formula E win in two years at Puebla when Pascal Wehrlein was disqualified moments after crossing the line to take what would have been Porsche’s first victory in the series.

Wehrlein controlled the whole race on the road, holding enough of an advantage that he didn’t even lose the lead when he took his second trip around the attack mode loop.

But late in the race it was announced that both Porsches and both Nissans were under investigation for an initially unspecified technical infringement.

Just the finish, Wehrlein and team-mate Andre Lotterer were wiped from the timing screens because Porsche had not declared pre-race which tyre sets they would use. The Nissans were also thrown out for the same offence.

That meant di Grassi’s charge from eighth on the grid was sufficient to turn his so-far miserable season around and end his and the works Audi team’s win drought that had stretched back to Berlin in May 2019.

It was a 1-2 finish for Audi too, as team-mate Rene Rast had joined di Grassi in overcoming Venturi driver Edoardo Mortara in the closing laps.

The BMWs of Maximilian Guenther and Jake Dennis had been second and third in Wehrlein’s wake for much of the race before fading late on. Dennis ended up fifth behind Alexander Sims’s Mahindra, but Guenther fell right back to 12th.

Robin Frijns held onto the championship lead despite finishing only 17th following a penalty for punting title rival Nyck de Vries’ Mercedes into a spin having locked up while passing Alex Lynn.

Reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa’s hard-fought sixth place means he is now Frijns’s closest challenger in the standings, two points behind.

Displaced championship contenders Stoffel Vandoorne, Mitch Evans and de Vries made it through to seventh, eighth and ninth after their messy qualifying session.

Evans’s Jaguar team-mate Sam Bird exited the race in a collision with Lynn as he rejoined from the attack mode loop. Lynn’s Mahindra team-mate Sims had earlier been involved in an almost identical incident with Jean-Eric Vergne that put the DS Techeetah into the same wall, which Nick Cassidy also hit in a lap one crash. The Cassidy and Bird incidents both caused safety cars.

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— The Race (@wearetherace) June 19, 2021

Front row starter Oliver Rowland made an awful start and slumped to 14th immediately. His radio failed before the race, and he also appeared to be unable to trigger attack mode. He eventually parked his Nissan four laps from the finish, but would have been disqualified anyway.

Race Results