Techeetah’s Jean-Eric Vergne dominated the Paris ePrix, a home race for the Frenchman, to take his third victory of the 2017-18 ABB FIA Formula E season and extend his points lead.
Vergne had captured the pole for Saturday’s ePrix, and controlled the race throughout after taking the lead off the initial start.
Behind Vergne, chaos reigned on the final lap between teammate Andre Lotterer, Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler’s Lucas di Grassi, and DS Virgin Racing’s Sam Bird.
The three had battled throughout the race for second, with Lotterer taking the spot from Bird, and di Grassi following suit in the second half of the race, relegating Bird back to fourth.
However, all of that changed on the final lap when Lotterer’s Spark-Renault ran out of energy. Di Grassi was able to cleanly get by for second, but Lotterer subsequently tried to block Bird from getting by as they approached the final corner. Bird tried to avoid him, but the two made heavy contact, which saw Lotterer lose the rear wing of his car while Bird had his right-front wheel ripped off.
Remarkably, Bird was still able to cross the line in third place to round out the podium behind Vergne and di Grassi. Lotterer was relegated to sixth behind Venturi Formula E Team’s Maro Engel and Renault E.Dams’ Sebastien Buemi.
.@JeanEricVergne wins the 2018 Qatar Airways #ParisEPrix, @LucasdiGrassi second but @sambirdracing finishes third with three wheels! 😱 pic.twitter.com/Il7rMgUJod
— ABB FIA Formula E World Championship (@FIAFormulaE) April 28, 2018
This is what happened between @Andre_Lotterer and @sambirdracing in the final few corners... #ParisEPrix pic.twitter.com/9Gz6ei2Y5X
— ABB FIA Formula E World Championship (@FIAFormulaE) April 28, 2018
Full race results can be found here. The win sees Vergne extend his championship lead over Bird to 31 points - 147 to 116. Mahindra Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist, who finished eighth in Paris, sits third on 86 points.