Dragon Penske Autosport’s Frederik Rasmussen secured his first race win in Formula E’s Accelerate esports series at Diriyah having finished second in the two previous rounds.
With two rounds of the championship left to go and a double points finale, only 17 points separates the top three drivers with a share of the €100,000 prize pool on the line.
The top three drivers in the drivers’ championship locked out the front three starting grid slots at the Riyadh Street Circuit, albeit in reverse championship order as Rasmussen took pole position by 0.341s over Kevin Siggy with Erhan Jajovski only a further three thousandths of a second back in third.
Both Mercedes drivers started inside the top six with Vegas eRace winner Bono Huis in fourth and the 2020 F1 Esports champion Jarno Opmeer in sixth, the duo separated by Envision Virgin’s Graham Carroll.
Rasmussen led from lights to flag despite contact from Siggy as the BMW Andretti driver braked late into the Turns 18 and 19 chicane to try and take the lead of the race.
The move backfired as Siggy went into the side of Rasmussen’s car, lost momentum and was passed by championship leader Jajovski before he could get back up to speed.
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Rasmussen won with a 1.8 second gap over Jajovski to close the points gap between them to 17 points.
Siggy is still second in the standings despite finishing behind both of his title rivals and trails Jajovski by 12 points.
Huis and Carroll rounded out the top five while Opmeer fell back to 10th.
Also held during this even was the first of two races labelled Formula E Drivers Challenge with a grid of real-world series drivers – one from each team – racing against each other for points towards their adjacent squads in the Accelerate series.
BMW Andretti’s Jake Dennis took pole position and went on to win the race comfortably as he finished with a margin of over seven seconds to the driver behind him.
His victory along with Siggy’s third place in the sim drivers race means BMW Andretti have extended their championship lead from 12 to 20 points over Venturi in second.
Sam Bird, the winner of the second Diriyah ePrix, was the second fastest in qualifying but was one of many drivers caught up in a first corner crash in the race that involved most of the grid and ended his race.
First win of the year, still counts right 🤷🏼♂️🤣 https://t.co/yUe6MKzMdT
— Jake Dennis (@JakeDennis19) March 11, 2021
One of the few who got through it unscathed was Sergio Sette Camara who moved up from 10th place to second in the opening corner and went on to claim second place and 18 points for Dragon.
Venturi’s representative, Norman Nato, ended the race in third to ensure the top three teams in the championship standings locked out the podium positions even though he finished 34 seconds behind race winner Dennis.
Nyck de Vries and Sebastien Buemi completed the top five.
The other 12 drivers will have their race shown in two weeks time for the grand final of Formula E Accelerate.
