FE Talk: Vergne Retains His Championship Crown

Jean-Eric Vergne became the first ever two-time ABB FIA Formula E Champion in New York. After crashing out of Race 1, Vergne guided his car home to 7th place in Race 2 as his title rivals collided on the final lap.

Despite a commanding 33-point leading into the double header in New York, Vergne had a tough time of things as chaos ensued across the weekend.

Sebastian Buemi blasted his way into title contention with pole and victory in Race 1 on Saturday. The race was a crazy affair with action and incidents up and down the field that resulted in championship leader Jean-Eric Vergne retiring from the race.

Initially Vergne, through no fault of his own, got involved in a turn 6 melee as Sam Bird clashed with the two Dragon cars, spinning Jose-Maria Lopez. The blockage saw a number of cars brake suddenly with Vergne reacting well initially. But, teammate Andre Lotterer would then collide into the back of him pushing Vergne further into the melee, damaging his car and forcing the Frenchman to take a front-nose change.

There was hope for Vergne however as a safety car for the stricken Jaguar of Alex Lynn bunched the field back together.

But on the last lap, Vergne made a dive up the inside of Felipe Massa at turn 1. Massa defended hard, too hard, and pushed Vergne into the inside wall of turn 2. The damage was terminal and Vergne would score no points in race 1.

Di Grassi had recovered well from a poor qualifying to finish 5th place, cutting 10 points out of Vergne’s lead. The Brazilian would need to win race 2 to have any chance of taking the title from his rival.

This performance however dwarfed into comparison to the drive that we saw from Mitch Evans. 

Evans started in 13th place after a poor qualifying but battle his way up into second place, even putting pressure on Buemi in the latter stages of the race.

That second place kept the Jaguar driver in championship contention but needing a race victory, fastest lap and Jean-Eric Vergne to score no points in the final race of the season.

After his victory, Buemi had surprisingly catapulted himself into a potential title winning position. All-be-it needing to have the same result as Mitch Evans but also take pole position.

Unfortunately for Buemi he was immediately bumped out of the title fight despite his best efforts in Qualifying as he finished 3rd in Superpole, only a tenth and a half off of pole sitter Alexander Sims. Evans was best placed of the Championship contenders but still only 8th while Di Grassi and Vergne would start side-by-side in 11th and 12th respectively.

Then the FIA threw a curve-ball at the teams and drivers with just 1 hour before the race start. Instead of the conventional 2 Attack Mode’s that we have seen at each race so far this season, we would have 3. 

This meaning out of the 45 minutes + 1 lap of racing drivers would have to run in Attack Mode for 12 minutes. Suddenly the likes of energy saving and battery temperature became much larger issues. It has always been an option for the organisers to change the number of Attack Modes, but up until this race, every event had seen only 2 of them.

Presumably the FIA were hoping that this extra Attack Mode would spice up the racing even more in Sunday’s race but unfortunately this was not the case.

Due to the concerns mentioned, in particular battery temperature, teams and drivers aimed to use up their Attack Mode’s as early as possible to avoid running into problems later in the race. Because of this there was no-one in position to burn energy late in the race and go on the offensive.

Sims led the early stages of the race and looked to build a gap up-front. Behind Evans, Di Grassi and Vergne made little progress, all remaining near where they qualified.

A safety car was brought out after only 5 minutes following the retirement of Jose-Maria Lopez, who this time had been punted around on the first lap by Andre Lotterer.

After the safety car interruption, the Envision Virgin car of Robert Frijns battled his way from third into the lead with aggressive moves on Sebastian Buemi and Alexander Sims. Frijns would then romp into a commanding lead and was not seen again. 

Sims would finish second ahead of Buemi, who turned around a disasterous first half the season to finish as the runner-up in the standings, just 17 points shy of Vergne

Further back there was steady progress from Mitch Evans and Lucas Di Grassi as they tried to battle their way to the front. Evans lead the charge but became stuck behind the other Audi car of Daniel Abt. Abt defended right on the limit of what was fair from the Jaguar driver, to prevent Evans from jumping teammate Di Grassi in the standings.

Jean-Eric Vergne sat behind the pair the entire time, 1 or 2 places back, knowing he just needed to stay in the race and not do anything stupid and he would be the Season 5 Champion. The result would also secure the Constructors crown for DS Techeetah, an appropriate come back for the team who lost to Audi at this venue 12 months ago.

While Vergne was unfazed by his situation, the same though could not be said for Evans and Di Grassi, as the two collided and consequently retired on the last lap.

Evans, seemingly struggling with some battery problem out of turn 10, was potentially looking to let the cars behind past when Di Grassi ran into the back of him. From this Di Grassi looked to the inside going towards turn 11 but Mitch Evans, clearly frustrated at the bump from the Audi, slammed the door shut, pinning Di Grassi into the wall. The contact resulted in the two going straight off at 11 and failing to score any poits in the season finale.

It mattered not anyway. We already knew Vergne was the Champion at this point and the DS Techeetah team took the Constructors title by 19 points, their first in Formula E.

After the season we have had, few would argue that Jean-Eric Vergne is a deserving Champion. The first man to win two races, the only to win three, in a season where we had 9 different winners in only 14 races.