It was a beautiful day in Diriyah, a town in Saudi Arabia. It rained in the morning and we saw wet practice and a bit of wet qualifying. We heard Saudi national anthem at 16:43 PM. After few minutes there was a flyby by Saudia Airline and Saudi air force.
We also saw two British athletes as special guests, Wayne Rooney and Amir Khan, who came at the inaugural season of the GEN-2 Formula E cars. Both were quite new to the electric racing series like most of the new Formula E fans.There was a formation lap at 17:05 PM, now it wasn’t the same formation lap as in other sports but it’s a new thing to Formula E as cars usually use to form a gird just a bit behind the starting gird in previous GEN Cars, but with the advent of the new cars, battery wasn’t a real problem and we saw the cars warming up their tyres. Da Costa, who was on pole, couldn’t line up properly with the yellow line on the gird and had to reverse in order to line up properly. Lights out at 17:08 PM and De Costa got a good start despite not lining up properly, Lopez lost a position to Buemi who started 3rd. Stoffel Vandoorne got a bad start and lost a position, he was in 5th now. Mortara locked up and hit the barrier, he damaged his front wing and limped back to the pit for a new front wing. A full course yellow was waved but there was a problem because the FIA graphics weren’t waving a yellow flag and no Marshall was waving any yellow flag.
After five minutes of racing, the race control activated attack zone, the drivers can choose to drive now. Vergne was looking great after starting 7th, he was in 4th and was fighting Lopez for 3rd. Paffett, HWA’s second driver was struggling through the field and lost 14th place to Rowland. Vergne took 3rd place from Lopez and now Lopez had to defend from his teammate, Lotterer. They both were fighting wheel to wheel, no team orders eventually Lopez won the battle. Now he was defending 4th place from D’Ambrosio but defended it superbly. After 10 mins of racing the top 5 stands as following: Da Costa, Buemi, Vernge, Lotterer and Lopez.
Vergne now attacking Buemi, two world champions going side by side and Vergne with more skill got the move done and he was in 2nd now. Paffett got a problem and he eventually retired from the race. Not the race HWA RaceLab wanted. Ex-F1 Driver, Felipe Massa overtook Ex-McLaren driver around the inside. Stoffel was struggling in the race despite starting 4th. Vergne and Da Costa now fighting for the lead of the race and Vergne got the move done, he was in first now. He was looking good from the start. After 20 minutes of racing, the top 5 stand as following: Vergne, Da Costa, Lotterer, Buemi and Lopez in 5th. Paffett and Rosenqvist were out of the race.
With 20 minutes remaining, most the drivers 60% battery remaining, showing how much battery these new Gen cars had compared to last Gen cars. Daniel Abt uses fan boost to overtake Rowland. Buemi was under attack from Lopez who used attack mode to overtake him but fails to do so. As Lopez tries to overtake Buemi again, he succeeds this time around, D’Ambrosio sees the gap and goes for it, Buemi loses two positions in one turn. As Vergne was in lead he was given a drive through penalty for technical management issues. Lotterer uses attack mode to attack Da Costa who was in 2nd but fails to overtake. Lotterer is also given the same penalty for the same incident as Vergne. Da Costa takes the lead back. After 30 minutes of racing, the top five stands as following: Da Costa, Lopez, D’Ambrosio, Buemi and Vergne in 5th.
D’Ambrosio was trying to attack Lopez by activating attack mode but he fails to pass through the activation zone and loses a position to Lopez. Top three still hadn’t used their attack modes. Lopez this time around did the same mistake as D’Ambrosio and lost a position to Vergne. Lopez who was running pretty well, broke his rear left suspension and was out of the race. Full course Yellow was waved that means drivers had to slow down to 50 KM/H. After some seconds FIA decides to bring out SC as Full Course wasn’t enough. With 5 minutes remaining in the race, the top five are as follows: Da Costa, D’Ambrosio, Vergne, Buemi and Evans in fifth.
Race control decides to bring in the SC with 4 mins remaining. Green flags are waved and Da Costa manages to defend his lead from D’Ambrosio. Whereas D’Ambrosio couldn’t defend his position from Vergne and Vergne after getting a penalty is in 2nd with less than 3 minutes to go. Lotterer squeezes Buemi and they both make contact but Lotterer gains the position. 10 second penalty for Sims, as Stewards found him of technical management issues. Vergne and Da Costa both fighting for first position on the penultimate lap of the race on the final straight but Da Costa manages to defend the position. Da Costa crosses the line to let BMW win their first race in Formula E with defending world champion finishing in second just 4 tenths behind Da Costa. D’Ambrosio finished in third.
This race was much more than we expected from GEN-2 Formula E cars. They were not only more powerful but also, they used less battery compared to GEN-1 Formula E cars. That’s it for the Ad-Diriyah ePrix. Christmas break and we will be back with Marrakesh ePrix on 12th of January 2019.
Muhammad Humais Senior Motorsports Reporter, Member news desk.
In his own words, “17-year-old Pakistan Formula One fan and sim racer. Ayrton Senna my inspiration. Dare to be the greatest.”
Humais can be easily reached by the following address:
Gmail: humaismuhammad55@gmail.com
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