Formula E

Huge crash ends New York Formula E race, Cassidy gets win

by Matt Beer
4 min read

Nick Cassidy has claimed his first Formula E victory in New York despite his Envision car being wrecked in a massive race-stopping accident.

Cassidy was among a group of cars that aquaplaned heavily into the barriers amid a downpour.

(Crash images and video all courtesy of Hugo Morales)

The weather had changed with 10 minutes of the 45 minutes plus one lap race on the clock, and polesitter Cassidy leading from Lucas di Grassi, Robin Frijns and Stoffel Vandoorne.

Three minutes later the leaders encountered a substantial puddle on the approach to the Turn 6 left-hander at the end of a long straight, with most of them instantly losing control and ploughing into the barriers.

 

Of the lead group, only Frijns made it through unscathed, with Cassidy, di Grassi and Vandoorne’s cars all sustaining substantial damage as they slammed into the barriers and each other.

Sebastien Buemi, who had been in the lead group throughout too, also crashed, while pre-race championship leader Edoardo Mortara hit the barriers but managed to get back to the pits.

Pascal Wehrlein’s Porsche stopped on track after his own incident and was collected at low speed by a queue of cars.

Efforts were initially made to repair the barriers and get the race going again.

But this was abandoned just over 20 minutes after the crash, with the official order reset to before the accident happened.

Whatsapp Image 2022 07 16 At 1.52.22 Pm

That made Cassidy a Formula E winner despite his heavily damaged car being in the barriers.

He had controlled the race throughout, only losing the lead when taking attack modes, and resisting heavy pressure from di Grassi and Vandoorne in particular.

Vandoorne had fallen from second to fourth at the start, surged forward in the second half of the race then dropped back to fourth when di Grassi came back at him and Frijns capitalised and got between them.

That meant it was an Envision 1-3 in the official order, with Frijns completing the podium ahead of Vandoorne.

Mortara retains his championship lead thanks to Vandoorne’s late loss of places and his own progress from the lower top 10 to fifth in the rain.

Buemi and Wehrlein were classified sixth and seventh, ahead of Jake Dennis, Sam Bird and Nyck de Vries.

After his poor qualifying, title contender Mitch Evans made little progress and officially finished 11th – though he had emerged third after the crash before countback was applied.

That was still better than the fourth championship protagonist Jean-Eric Vergne, who had been spun to the back in a first-lap pile-up also involving Evans, Andre Lotterer and Antonio Giovinazzi. He finished 18th.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Car Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Nick Cassidy Envision Racing Audi e-tron FE07 29 0 35m04.095s 1m11.279s 0 28
2 Lucas Di Grassi ROKiT Venturi Racing Mercedes-EQ Silver Arrow 02 29 0 +1.123s 1m11.035s 0 18
3 Robin Frijns Envision Racing Audi e-tron FE07 29 0 +1.671s 1m11.075s 0 15
4 Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes-Benz EQ Mercedes-EQ Silver Arrow 02 29 0 +3.693s 1m11.012s 0 12
5 Sébastien Buemi Nissan e.Dams Nissan IM03 29 0 +5.57s 1m11.581s 0 10
6 Pascal Wehrlein TAG Heuer Porsche Porsche 99X Electric 29 0 +5.783s 1m11.096s 0 8
7 Sam Bird Jaguar TCS Racing Jaguar I-Type 5 29 0 +7.207s 1m11.328s 0 6
8 Nyck de Vries Mercedes-Benz EQ Mercedes-EQ Silver Arrow 02 29 0 +7.503s 1m10.86s 0 4
9 Edoardo Mortara ROKiT Venturi Racing Mercedes-EQ Silver Arrow 02 29 0 +9.734s 1m10.843s 0 3
10 Jake Dennis Avalanche Andretti BMW i FE.21 29 0 +11.595s 1m11.41s 0 1
11 Mitch Evans Jaguar TCS Racing Jaguar I-Type 5 29 0 +8.605s 1m10.984s 0 0
12 Maximilian Günther Nissan e.Dams Nissan IM03 29 0 +13.763s 1m11.338s 0 0
13 Oliver Rowland Mahindra Racing Mahindra M8Electro 29 0 +14.924s 1m11.305s 0 0
14 Alexander Sims Mahindra Racing Mahindra M8Electro 29 0 +16.648s 1m11.544s 0 0
15 Oliver Turvey NIO 333 Racing NIO 333 001 29 0 +19.707s 1m11.669s 0 0
16 André Lotterer TAG Heuer Porsche Porsche 99X Electric 29 0 +24.384s 1m11.482s 0 0
17 Daniel Ticktum NIO 333 Racing NIO 333 001 29 0 +25.312s 1m11.769s 0 0
18 Jean-Eric Vergne DS Techeetah DS E-Tense FE21 29 0 +53.018s 1m11.006s 0 0
19 Oliver Askew Avalanche Andretti BMW i FE.21 29 0 +1m01.282s 1m11.507s 0 0
António Félix da Costa DS Techeetah DS E-Tense FE21 28 0 DNF 1m11.322s 0 0
Antonio Giovinazzi Dragon / Penske Autosport Penske EV-5 0 0 DNF 0s 0 0
Sérgio Sette Câmara Dragon / Penske Autosport Penske EV-5 0 0 DNF 0s 0 0
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