Mercedes’ Stoffel Vandoorne won the second Formula E race of the weekend in Rome on Sunday. Brit Sam Bird stayed at the top of the electric championship despite not scoring a goal for Jaguar. The Belgian Vandoorne, who retired at the previous day’s E-Prix in the EUR district of the Italian capital, beat Alexander Sims of Mahindra Racing by 0.666 seconds in what he described as “redemption”.
Pascal Wehrlein finished third for Porsche after Norman Nato was downgraded from the podium by Venturi for consuming too much energy. Former McLaren F1 racing driver Vandoorne took the bonus point for the fastest lap on his team’s second win of the season.
Bird, second and winner in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, has 43 points after four laps. Teammate Mitch Evans from New Zealand moves up to second place at 39 after finishing sixth on Sunday. The Dutch driver Robin Frijns failed at the gate and fell back to third place overall for Envision Virgin Racing (34). Vandoorne moved up to fourth place at 33, ahead of Dutch teammate Nyck de Vries.
For the second time in a row, the race started behind the safety car because of wet spots on the racetrack. Rookie Nick Cassidy was the leader when the lights turned green but that was short-lived due to a technical issue and he spun on the first lap.
NATO took over a few laps before he was overtaken by Wehrlein, but Vandoorne then took the lead when the German stepped off the racing line to activate attack mode. The safety car was used again late in the race when Audi’s Rene Rast crashed.
On the final lap, Bird and de Vries collided and also collected Nissan’s Oliver Rowland. Saturday’s winner, Jean-Eric Vergne, was 11th for Techeetah.
(This story was not edited by Devdiscourse staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
The post Motorsport-Vandoorne wins the second Formula E race in Rome, Bird remains in the lead first appeared on monter-une-startup.
