The next race of the Formula e season came on the best Formula e track on the calendar, the Monaco Grand Prix circuit which produced one of the greatest Formula e races of all time last year. While the season eight edition wasn’t quite as exciting as its predecessor, it still saw a great battle at the front between multiple drivers from different teams, despite absolutely no gimmicks to shake up the order like last season, and season eight currently looks like it could end up surpassing season five to be the greatest Formula e season so far.
Stoffel Vandoorne took his first win of the season, while Mercedes became the second team to win two races after Jaguar and the first to have both drivers claim a victory. With it, Vandoorne took the championship lead away from Jean-Eric Vergne who finished third in the race, while with second place Mitch Evans moved up to third having fully made up for his difficult start to the season. Robin Frijns, the most consistent driver in Formula e, finished fourth while a double retirement for Porsche, and retirement also for Mortara, meant that the top four have pulled a lead in the championship.
Mitch Evans claimed pole position, his first since Santiago season six, and led at the start ahead of Pascal Wehrlein in second for Porsche, and then Vergne, Vandoorne, Di Grassi, Lotterer, De Vries and Frijns. Those top eight ran in formation at the front for the first half of the race and pulled a marginal gap over those behind, but the first driver to go for attack mode in the lead battle was Frijns, who immediately made progress. At the front, Vergne went to attack mode and dropped to sixth but passed Frijns. Then Evans responded and came out just behind Vergne, who was back ahead of Di Grassi and Vandoorne who also took attack mode. However, Evans had been using more energy than the rest of the leaders due to having given a slipstream to those behind. Meanwhile, De Vries had been muscled back out of the top ten.
Wehrlein took attack mode and came out in third place but quickly dispatched Evans on the run up to the Nouvelle Chicane, and then did the same to Vergne a lap later as Vandoorne also passed Evans. Wehrlein was now looking set for victory but disaster struck as he slowed up towards the chicane, appearing to lose drive. New leader Vergne took attack mode and dropped behind Vandoorne and Evans, but this proved to be a mistake as the full-course yellow came out after Wehrlein had stopped after the tunnel. It created quite a dangerous situation where the drivers came out of the tunnel at racing speed with a car stopped on the racing line before the full-course yellow. Vandoorne somehow pulled a huge lead during the full-course yellow, while Vergne had his attack mode run out behind Evans.
Immediately after the full-course yellow, Vandoorne took attack mode and now looked in total control before the safety car was deployed, due to an accident as Rowland dived down the inside of Lotterer for fifth into Sainte Devote and put them both in the wall. Mahindra are having a miserable season, currently tenth in the championship despite what appears to be a good car as yet again Sims underperformed and failed to make it into the points, while Rowland showed good speed but lost a good result due to a silly collision. The safety car negated both Vandoorne’s lead and his attack mode.
Mitch Evans in second took attack mode and dropped behind Vergne and Frijns, who had benefitted from the collision and also passed Di Grassi, but by the time he had made it back up to second, Vandoorne was long gone and had the race under control. Vandoorne took the victory ahead of Evans, Vergne and Frijns, with those four claiming a lead in the championship. Da Costa salvaged a surprise fifth place after a difficult qualifying, passing Di Grassi as the Venturi struggled for race pace.
Mortara should have been seventh but retired into the pits, and taking over that position was Max Gunther. Gunther was low on energy and doing his best to hold on ahead of Nick Cassidy, but on the final lap Gunther finally ran out and Cassidy claimed seventh. Sebastien Buemi was eighth for Nissan from the back of the grid, a great drive, while Jake Dennis and Nyck De Vries claimed the final points positions. Alexander Sims just missed out in 11th, ahead of an impressive Dan Ticktum, Sette-Camara, Turvey, Askew and Giovinazzi. Sam Bird was the first retirement from the race to continue his miserable season.
Driver Ratings:
Stoffel Vandoorne – 9. Perhaps wouldn’t have won without Wehrlein’s misfortune but made a bold pass on Mitch Evans, played the attack mode game perfectly and got slightly lucky with the full-course yellow to win comfortably in the end.
Mitch Evans – 9. Took pole position with a very impressive lap and led the race for some time, but perhaps he would have been wiser to let Wehrlein through and save energy early on as that caused him to struggle later.
Jean-Eric Vergne – 9. After another strong qualifying, he appeared to have played attack mode perfectly to take the lead after problems for Wehrlein, but took the second at exactly the wrong time when the FCY came out, which potentially cost him the win.
Robin Frijns – 8. After falling back to eighth at the start, moved up strongly with early attack mode activations but had dropped away from the lead battle before benefitting from the Rowland-Lotterer crash and late safety car to get back into contention and claim fourth.
Antonio Felix Da Costa – 7. A disappointing qualifying and spent most of the early laps in the lower end of the top ten, but also benefitted from the safety car and crash and made a late race charge to pass Di Grassi and claim fifth.
Lucas di Grassi – 8. An impressive qualifying to line up fifth and stayed right in the lead battle for a long time, but late in the race the Venturi didn’t appear to have the race pace and he dropped back. Would be two places higher without the safety car.
Nick Cassidy – 6. Still some way off the pace of his teammate but made another good fightback after a poor qualifying in eighteenth in one of the fastest cars, to claim seventh, although he took too long to pass Gunther.
Sebastien Buemi – 8. To finish in the points was impressive from the back of the grid, but it can’t be ignored that it was his poor qualifying that put him there, and he also benefitted from the safety car. Nonetheless, a great comeback.
Jake Dennis – 6. Behind Askew on the grid, but made up five places on the first lap and then ran around the lower end of the top ten before claiming points on the final lap. The Andretti does not look among the most competitive cars this year.
Nyck De Vries – 5. In a car which had the race pace to win, De Vries once again fell back during the race, being passed by multiple cars at once, and ended up taking just a solitary point. After initially looking like the championship favourite he is now eighth in the points.
Alexander Sims – 5. The Mahindra is a good car but Sims is still yet to score a point as he ran towards the back of the field as Rowland was briefly in the top five, and them moved up to the fringes of the points when others had problems at the end.
Dan Ticktum – 8. An outstanding qualifying performance from Ticktum to claim 14th in the uncompetitive NIO, and was running in the lower midfield for most of the race but using slightly too much energy so was unable to break into the points.
Sergio Sette-Camara – 6. Outqualified by teammate Giovinazzi and appeared to play the game of dropping back and saving energy, without actually gaining much energy over his rivals. Nonethless, he fought back fairly well after the safety car.
Oliver Turvey – 4. After an awful qualifying as he was considerably slower than Ticktum, he backed off at the start and saved energy, so that when the late safety car came out he had considerably more than those in front and looked set for a late charge to the points, which never happened due to a lack of pace.
Oliver Askew – 5. Did well in qualifying to beat Jake Dennis but once again fell back in the race and ended up behind the NIOs and Dragons. Has struggled after an impressive debut in Ad Diriyah.
Antonio Giovinazzi – 7. A better showing from Giovinazzi as he outqualified his teammate and then stayed with the lower midfield at the start. Only dropped one place behind Sette-Camara despite his teammate getting lucky with the safety car.
Max Gunther – 7. Did a decent job in qualifying and looked a threat for points throughout, before making it to seventh but overconsuming. Put up a stout defence against Cassidy but it wasn’t enough and he ran out of energy on the final lap.
Edoardo Mortara – 7. Another slightly disappointing qualifying but he had been running well in the race and fighting back through the pack before an issue caused him to put and lose seventh.
Andre Lotterer – 7. Running in the lead battle once again and looking set for a good haul of points before being taken out by Rowland, but he wasn’t as quick as his teammate and was not threatening the podium.
Oliver Rowland – 5. As usual, showed great speed in the Mahindra but threw away a good position with a silly incident as he dived down the inside of Lotterer at Sainte Devote while going for fifth and hit the wall, putting both out of the race.
Pascal Wehrlein – 9. Claimed second on the grid and was running perfectly at the start, staying in Evans’ slipstream and saving energy, then made two strong passes on Evans and Vergne for the lead and looked set to win before slowing up towards the hairpin and retiring.
Sam Bird – 3. A slightly disappointing qualifying, but further back on the grid due to a penalty. His first few laps were bad as he dropped back being too cautious at the start, then hit the wall and retired.
The F1 Frog Blog 