Stoffel Vandoorne rued a simple error of judgement after losing what would have been his third Formula E victory by missing his second attack mode activation while leading the 2022 season-opening Diriyah E-Prix, saying he only had himself to blame.
Polesitter Vandoorne led the early stages of the race but effectively handed the win to Mercedes team-mate Nyck de Vries when he failed to hit the activation transponder loop at the Turn 18/Turn 19 complex.
Pulling off line to take the attack mode meant Vandoorne relinquished the lead to de Vries without gaining the extra power boost and while still needing to visit the activation loop again.
De Vries was never headed thereafter, repeating his win in the 2021 season-opener at the same venue.
Vandoorne explained that he immediately knew of the magnitude of his error due to a message received on his dash display.
“The dash basically tells us what loop we missed, and I missed the last one.” Vandoorne told The Race.
“I only have myself to blame really. W practice this in the practice sessions, and I always got all the loops.
“Then obviously in the race I didn’t get it.
“That’s just myself to blame and that’s where I lost the race today.”
The Mercedes pair opened a large gap over early opposition that included Andre Lotterer’s Porsche and Jake Dennis’ Avalanche Andretti BMW.
But when Lotterer held up Dennis for several laps the Mercedes were released and controlled the race, opening out a dominant advantage and taking the chequered flag eight seconds clear of third placed Dennis.
Prior to that period of the race an early safety car, triggered by Oliver Rowland being punted into a race ending spin by Robin Frijns, provided another opportunity for the leading Mercedes EQ pair.
The Porsche Taycan safety car proceeded to speed up significantly after the Turn 18 and 19 complex before ducking into the pits, catching out all bar the leading cars spreading the field out at the restart.
“To be honest it’s a known thing that the safety car kind of goes around very, very slow, And then when they realise that the track is going to go clear suddenly speeds up a lot,” said Vandoorne.
“Looking back at the scenario with ‘Simsy’ [Alexander Sims] a few years, I think he was leading the race and a similar thing happened then.
“All you need to do is kind of stay close to the safety car, because the guys behind, they’re going to be kind of sleeping.
“So I stayed close to the safety car, and I think it was only myself, Nyck and Jake, that really realised and kind of stuck together, but then behind that, I think it was probably spread out.”
