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Sunday, July 14, 2019
Ambient 31C Track 38C Humidity 57% Wind
4 kph
Good start by Buemi and great start by
Lynn. Lots of bumping through the first 3 turns. Sims was first to
make the big move on the 2nd lap, a punishing maneuver that wound up
dropping Wehrlein down to P5. No sooner had that taken place then
some kind of utter catastrophe had put Lotterer into the wall heading
into T5, with carnage all round. Vergne, too was caught up in the
mess and after extricating himself was into the pits with damage to
the front of the car, bodywork waving wildly in the wind. Lotterer
was in worse shape but he still managed to drag the smoking carcass
of his car around the track and to the pits, bodywork dragging
heavily on the tyres and billowing out their protest.
Di Grassi was in P14 and now looking to
advance and take advantage of the championship leader's misfortunes.
A replay of the previous lap's catastrophe showed that heading into
T5 Bird tagged Lopez who looked to be trying to get round Gunther and
then it was an accordion behind, with Vergne tagging the car ahead of
him and then getting whacked from Lotterer behind, who wound up being
just about turned around by Di Grassi when Lucas tapped him from
behind.
Whilst that madness unfolded, Alex Lynn
was busy consolidating his hold on 2nd, but with Buemi running a
conservative race, likely to keep a careful watch on battery temps
and energy, the interval between the top 4 was just under a second
each.
36 minutes to go and Lynn was first to
tag the attack mode, forcing Buemi to respond the following lap.
Still, Lynn was loitering around half a second off the lead and still
setting purple sectors as lapped traffic hove into view. Further
back, Di Grassi had worked his way up to P11 and was now chasing
Frijns for P10, a position he handily took into T10 with 31 minutes
left in the race.
Bit of bump drafting into T10 as Lynn
urged Buemi forward at one of the best overtaking spots on the
circuit. 10 second penalty for Bird was announced, causing a
collision, and then it was Lynn, making his move through the first
complex of turns, before Buemi ably snatched the position back on the
long straight to T6. Massa and Paffett had a bit of a tangle into T10
and it was Massa coming off better and Paffett dropping back to P15.
Frijns meanwhile was suffering and the
decision was made to retire him. 22 minutes to go and Lynn was all
over the diffuser of Buemi and as they rounded T5 Sims, just behind
picked up attack mode. As Lynn defended from Sims, suddenly he pulled
over, a momentary loss of power, but then reaccelerated. It was but a
brief remission as seconds later, Lynn pulled over, day done.
Sims used the remainder of his attack
mode to close down the gap to Buemi and Sam Bird, still with a 10
second penalty, had moved himself up to P4, with a nifty pass on
Wehrlein. Behind, Da Costa and Evans had also sensed a weakness with
the Mahindra and had followed suit, bringing Wehrlein down to P7,
with Gunther, having a good drive for Dragon behind.
Safety Car at 19 minutes, called to
remove the stricken Jaguar with a restart at 16 minutes. Buemi had a
torrid restart with Sims all over him as he failed to create any gap
whatsoever. As Sims hung outside Buemi, Abt, on a run tried to come
alongside and as the rolled into the turn the by now iconic sound of
crunching diffuser was clearly audible. But the next duel was between
Evans and Abt with a savage move into T10 crunching the Audi driver
and down the field he went, to P9 before he recovered his footing.
Another savage move, farther back, was
Turvey taking on Paffet and just basically driving into the side of
him in T10, not the most artful of things but effective, even if it
was only for P16. Evans was next up to make a fantastic move up into
P2 past Sims, avenging his lost comrade.
A big smash with Mortara trying to send
one up the inside on T10 promoted Vergne to P12 and with 7 minutes to
go it was another place. Di Grassi under investigation as Buemi
continued to weave his defensive spell at the front, with Evans, now
past Sims, lingering about a second back. The next lap he was another
second off and Da Costa was all over him, with likely battery or
energy issues making his life very difficult. Vergne nabbed his
second attack mode and was up to P9.
2 minutes to go and it was Evans saying
the balance had gone and as he defended from Sims, he set up Di
Grassi to have a go at Bird, up to P5, not a bad haul from a P14
start. Last lap and then it was Vergne, stealin all the focus as he
and Massa, who had passed him for P9, had a terminal disagreement
into T1 and created a bottlenck, costing him 3 points as Di Grassi
finished P5 and Buemi, who was on 76 points at the start of the race,
was now holding 104 points to Vergne's 130.
In replay, it was Massa on the outside
around T2 as Vergne made a move, shutting the door into T3 and
putting Vergne into the wall and spinning himself. D'ambrosio, behind
the both of them, drove directly over them moster truck style to
carry on with his race.
With Evans P2 the championship was down
to 108 DIG and 105 EVA while on the team side, just 24 points
separated Techeetah from Audi for the team championship. And a huge
win for Buemi, the first for Nissan this season and coming at the
best of times for them in their first season as partners for the
e.Dams team. But at the top, nothing was going to change and it was
Buemi, Evans and Da Costa, in that order, taking it to the podium
before they did it all again tomorrow.
Matt's report has probably got you hyped to see the whole thing but here's the highlights
What a race! Here's your highlights from the 2019 #NYCEPrix 😲 pic.twitter.com/jxHHcettQV— ABB Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) July 14, 2019
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