At the start, Bird had led away from pole and appeared to have first place sealed on the run into Turn 1, but his fellow front-row starter Jean-Eric Vergne squeezed himself down the inside and the pair touched at the apex, with the contact sending Vergne spinning and the pack had to take urgent action to avoid him, dropping Sebastien Buemi and Mitch Evans down from third and fourth to 13th and 14th. .
While further down the grid, there was also a contact between Nelson Piquet Jr., Pascal Wehrlein and Lucas di Grassi, while the HWA teammates Stoffel Vandoorne and Gary Paffett also collided – with both retiring a little while later due the damage they sustained.
Bird led the two BMW drivers, with Sims taking advantage of the Turn 1 chaos to move up to second, during the early stages, before the duo swapped places and da Costa took up the pursuit of Bird on lap 11.
Da Costa stalked Bird before shooting to the inside of the Turn 4/5 chicane – taking the lead after the British driver cut the corner and lost out on the exit,while Sims also overtook Bird on the run to Turn 7. From there, the two BMWs edged clear and Bird fell back and was passed by Frijns, and then D’Ambrosio and di Grassi.
The BMW pair looked to have taken a winning advantage before D’Ambrosio, who had deposed Frijns, led the rest of the top six back up to the leaders shortly before their dramatic collision.Shortly afterward, a pack of the top six drivers formed, with Frijns, D’Ambrosio and di Grassi joining the three leaders, to edge away at the front from the other drivers. By the last 10 minutes, the BMW i Andretti Motorsport team had looked set to finish with a 1-2, and a back to back victory for the team, until Sims lunged to the outside of his teammate with 10 minutes remaining.
Both drivers locked up their tires in the side-on contact which led to Da Costa nosing into the barriers and retiring while Sims dropped back to fourth. This promoted d’Ambrosio into the lead but the Belgian needed to defend hard from Robin Frijns, who was following him closely in the final sprint to the checkered flag.
D’Ambrosio himself locked up into the final right-hand kink but held on to his lead, to finish 0.143 seconds ahead of the Envision Virgin driver, marking the closest racing finish in Formula E history, which saw a three-wide formation from D'Ambrosio, Frijns and Bird, in a final sprint down the finishing straight.
The win was D'Ambrosio's 3rd win in his career in the championship, and the first since 2016 Mexico City ePrix, was also the first win for him on the road, after his previous races saw him inherit wins due to driver disqualifications. Pole-sitter Sam Bird finished third in the sister Envision Virgin car after losing positions to the two BMW drivers and Frijns during the 45-minute race, while Sims settled for fourth.
Jean-Eric Vergne finished fifth behind Sims in the best of the DS Techeetah cars after producing a stellar drive, recovering from an opening-lap spin that saw the reigning champion drop to the rear of the field, and his teammate, Andre Lotterer finished 6th.
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