Stoffel Vandoorne finally broke his Formula E Race at Home duck by taking a convincing maiden win in New York City and overtaking Pascal Wehrlein to head the points standings.
Mercedes driver Vandoorne broke away at the start after fellow front-row starter Maximilian Guenther was tipped into a spin by Neel Jani at the first corner and caused a delay for most of the field.
Vandoorne quickly established a healthy lead and was able to cruise to his first win after finishing in three consecutive runners-up positions on the run up to this event.
A nightmare start for @maxg_official in the #RaceAtHome Challengehttps://t.co/9KqVKEr3qA pic.twitter.com/G1Q4yEbCYW
— ABB Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) May 30, 2020
The win vaults the former McLaren Formula 1 driver past Wehrlein into a two-point championship lead ahead of next weekend’s double-header finale.
Wehrlein finished in second place after surging through from a penalty affected seventh placed start .
The Mahindra driver had qualified second but took the five place grid penalty due to his clash with Guenther in Berlin last weekend.
Throughout the race a three-way fight for second place became the focus as Neel Jani came under significant pressure from Oliver Rowland and Wehrlein.
Jani was jumped by both on lap 11, just before Wehrlein then made a move on Rowland to claim second after making contact several times.
Brilliant wheel-to-wheel racing between @PWehrlein, @oliverrowland1 and @neeljani! #RaceAtHomehttps://t.co/9KqVKEr3qA pic.twitter.com/DU4UB1r2JN
— ABB Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) May 30, 2020
Rowland lost any chance of a bid for second when he was tagged by a last lap Jani lunge. The contact caused the Porsche to spin back to fifth place and allowed Antonio Felix da Costa’s DS Techeetah through to fourth.
Jaguar pairing Mitch Evans and James Calado took sixth and seventh ahead of Sebastien Buemi.
Oliver Turvey jumped Andre Lotterer in the final stages to claim ninth position.
Kevin Siggy took his fourth Challenge Race victory after converting his pole position into a dominant race performance as he headed the field by a massive 11 second margin.
In doing so, Siggy extended his points lead to 53 points ahead of the grand finale weekend next month.
The BMW driver broke free at the start when fellow front row starter Lucas Mueller was shunted sideways by Jacob Reid’s Venturi, which torpedoed several cars.
Among these was Peter Brljak’s Jaguar which was shunted down from third to 15th and just behind Mueller. Reid was handed a drivethrough penalty for the incident and then immediately lost his position in the race through the ‘race royale’ format coming into play.
Brljak fought back to claim a point in 10th, but Mueller missed out in 11th and lost his second place in the standings to Peyo Peev.
Jan Von Der Heyde took his best result of the campaign so far as he completed an incident free run to second for Nissan e.dams.
Third went to Joshua Rogers, who capitalised on a half-spin by Cem Bolukbasi on lap 11 to ensure Porsche beat BMW to the final podium position.
Peev was fifth for Dragon, while Kush Maini completed the top six in his DS Techeetah.
