FE Talk: Vergne Reigns Supreme in Monaco

Jean-Eric Vergne won a scintillating 4-way battle for the lead in Monte-Carlo on Saturday to become the first driver to win 2 races this season. The Season 4 Champion held off a surging charge from Oliver Rowland in the final 10 minutes of the race to become the first driver other than Sebastian Buemi to win around the circuit in Formula E.

With this victory, Vergne brings to an end what has been a truly epic streak of a different winner at ever race so far this season. Still, 8 winners from 8 races is something that will surely go down in the history books.

A Champions Drive From Vergne

After becoming the first driver to record two victories in Season 5 of Formula E, Vergne has leaped back to the top of the Drivers Championship with 87 points. Jean-Eric has had a topsy-turvey season so far with teammate Andre Lotterer being the far more consistent driver. Only one race ago the German driver had looked the more likely to challenge for the title than the Frenchman. Even at this point Lotterer only sits 1 point behind Vergne in the standings.

But Andre Lotterer has had multiple opportunities to win races this season and has always been usurped by another. Vergne, though less effective when racing through the midfield, has always delivered his chances at the front. And this drive at Monaco demonstrates this more than any other.

Vergne wasn’t the quickest driver this weekend. That accolade goes to Oliver Rowland. Had he not had a 3-place grid penalty for his part in the chaos in Paris then he would have started on pole-position. And, come the end of the race, it was evident that the young Brit was able to conserve more energy than Jean-Eric while running around at the same pace. On the last lap Rowland had 2% more energy than Vergne in-front which effectively is one lap around the streets of Monaco.
On top of this Rowland is not in a title fight, he had nothing to lose. He wanted a win and had the tools to do so.

Yet, with the immense pressure and threat that the Nissan driver offered, Vergne never once looked like surrendering the position. Not once did it look like Rowland had an opportunity to pass the gold and black car such was the inch perfect drive that Vergne put in.

So often we see drivers going on the defensive when coming under attack in the closing stages of the race but not Vergne. He kept his head cool, continued to run around at his pace, hit all his apex’s and braking points and saw the race through.

After the race Vergne revealed how much winning around the streets of Monaco meant to him.

“As a driver, it’s always the place you dream to be. I’ve never had a podium here in Monaco…I remember all the legends that have been on this podium and all the hard times I had in Formula One, so to be here to today feels very special to me.” – said Jean-Eric Vergne.

Right behind the leading pair was the Venturi of Felipe Massa, who registered his first ever Formula E podium with a hard fought P3, and the Mahindra of Pascal Wehrlein who will be kicking himself for missing out on another podium after an earlier lock-up while running P2.

The top 4 all crossed the line within 1.7 seconds of each other.

Midfield Mayhem

Sebastian Buemi played the unusual role of stop-blocker as he fiercely defended his 5th place. The Swiss Nissan e.dams driver never had the pace to stick with the top 4 and came under pressure all race long from a whole host of cars behind.

As part of the “Buemi-Bus” we saw a number of drivers crash out of the race due to the intense nature of the battles. Lucas Di Grassi, Robert Frijns and Sam Bird all fell victim to contact while battling for the lower half of the points.

Sam Bird’s incident occurred off camera and the world-feed never showed a replay of what happened but it is being reported that contact with the Jaguar of Mitch Evans gave Sam a rear puncture, ending his race two corners from the end. Sam had been running a fantastic 6th after starting in 14th place.

His teammate Robert Frijns and the Audi of Lucas Di Grassi fell victim to contact with the BMW of Alexander Sims. Frijns tried to bully his way up the inside of the BMW, who had already closed the door, going into St Devote. This resulted in contact with the wall and Sims which brought an end to his race and a 5-place gird penalty for the next race in Berlin.

Di Grassi and Sims contact was even more dramatic. During a tussle with Da Costa, Buemi and Bird Sims darted to the outside of turn 3 to try and find away around the cars in-front. However, Sims had not seen Di Grassi launching himself around the outside of his BMW at the same time. Sims flung his car into the Audi, crashing Di Grassi into the wall. This caused suspension damage that would retire the season 3 champion.

Maximillian Gunter, Eduardo Mortara and Oliver Turvey also failed to make the flag.

Post race penalties saw Antonio Felix Da Costa excluded from the race for exceeding the maximum power usage and Daniel Abt handed a 33-second time penalty for contact with Oliver Turvey.

The Title Contenders Shrink

Mathematically, ever single driver in the Formula E Championship is still a contender for the season 5 crown. There are over 100 points available in the final 4 rounds and only 87 points separating 1st and last in the standings.

But, this does not represent the real title picture.

We have seen how hard it is to register consistent points finishes this season let alone back-to-back wins, so a scenario where Tom Dillman produces the most stunning motorsport comeback of all-time and clinching the title is near impossible I’m afraid.

But where is the cut-off line? Who is too far back in the standings now?

I see it as only the top 6 are now within a shout of winning this years championship. That gives us Jean-Eric Vergne, Andre Lotterer, Robert Frijns, Antonio Felix Da Costa, Lucas Di Grassi and Mitch Evans.

The reason why I think the Championship hunt comes down to these 6 drivers is because they have continued to deliver points scoring results no matter where they start on the grid. They also all continue to shimmy their way up the standings where others keep faltering. I believe each of them has another race-victory (a first in Lotterer’s case) that could see any of them shoot of into the distance.

Now this may seem harsh on Jerome d’Ambrosio who sits only 4 points behind Evans in the standings and for long periods of this season led the Championship. But it’s been a long time since we’ve seen anything special out of him and he has just found himself steadily shifting down the table race-by-race.

This does though set us up for what will be a phenomenal final 4 rounds as the top guys now look to break away from one another and claim the Season 5 ABB FIA Formula E Championship.

Next ePrix: Berlin – 25/05/19