Berlin E-Prix V: Rowland dominates from pole for first FE win
Oliver Rowland expertly controlled the fifth Berlin race to score his maiden Formula E victory over Robin Frijns, as Rene Rast just crept onto the podium with a last-lap overtake
Rowland built a 1% useable energy advantage on the extended Tempelhof Airport circuit to control proceedings over Envision Virgin Racing driver Frijns.
He led from lights to flag to seal a 1.9s win in a 36-lap race, even though the timing screens had to reset after scoring the classification one tour prematurely.
Frijns drew his car's nose alongside into Turn 1 at the start, but Rowland had the inside line to lead by 0.4s at the end of the opening lap as newly-crowned champion Antonio Felix da Costa jumped from 21st - having failed to set a lap in qualifying - to 16th.
With Frijns activating both of his 35kW attack mode boosts before Rowland, the Briton never dropped from first place and with Jean-Eric Vergne failing to score points, Rowland jumped from ninth in the championship standings up to second.
Audi driver Rast scored a last-ditch podium, having harried the rear of Andre Lotterer's Porsche for much of the closing third of the race.
The FE returnee took his second and final attack mode later than Lotterer, but he failed to put it to use as he remained in fourth as the four-minute advantage ran out.
Instead, he bullied his way up the inside through the second sector and the pair remained rubbing side-by-side for a string of corners until Rast held the inside line at the Turn 15 hairpin.
Similarly, team-mate Lucas di Grassi was handed a 5s penalty after he span in an incident with da Costa.
The pair made progress through the field as they recovered from their group-one qualifying blunder, but as di Grassi passed into Turn 1 he cut across the DS Techeetah car's nose and slid.
Di Grassi was given the blame and classified 21st, while a late car failure dropped da Costa from the points down to 22nd.
Alex Lynn took the Mahindra Racing machine to fifth, after an enduring battle with third-starting Neel Jani.
The Porsche driver, who is expected to be replaced next season by Mahindra refugee Pascal Wehrlein, had been a strong but distant third until he lost out through the attack mode cycles and fell to sixth - but still enough for the team's best FE combined finish in its debut season.
A strong recovery and two late uses of attack mode allowed Mitch Evans into seventh for Jaguar ahead of the Venturi Racing car of Edoardo Mortara.
Stoffel Vandoorne edged ninth for Mercedes after a late deployment of his fanboost relegated Sebastien Buemi - stablemate to Rowland - down to 10th.
Behind Alexander Sims, Jaguar stand-in Tom Blomqvist looked set for a points finish on his series return until a late collapse dropped him to 12th.
A drivethrough penalty for Vergne for an over-cooled battery on the grid meant he wound up 18th in DS Techeetah's second non-score of the season.
Maximilian Guenther continued his inconsistent trend, after the race three winner ran to only 22nd after a right-rear puncture caused by a hit from di Grassi.
The BMW Andretti driver did resume late on in the race and 32 laps down before slowing immediately at the pit exit.
Results - 36 laps
Pos | Driver | Team | Gap |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Oliver Rowland | Nissan e.dams | 47m28.880s |
2 | Robin Frijns | Virgin | 1.903s |
3 | Rene Rast | Audi | 7.490s |
4 | Andre Lotterer | Porsche | 7.863s |
5 | Alex Lynn | Mahindra | 11.441s |
6 | Neel Jani | Porsche | 12.922s |
7 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar | 14.106s |
8 | Edoardo Mortara | Venturi | 17.134s |
9 | Stoffel Vandoorne | Mercedes | 18.949s |
10 | Sebastien Buemi | Nissan e.dams | 19.731s |
11 | Alexander Sims | BMW | 23.331s |
12 | Tom Blomqvist | Jaguar | 24.807s |
13 | Felipe Massa | Venturi | 27.775s |
14 | Nyck de Vries | Mercedes | 28.723s |
15 | Sergio Sette Camara | Dragon | 31.132s |
16 | Jerome d'Ambrosio | Mahindra | 31.524s |
17 | Nico Muller | Dragon | 34.140s |
18 | Jean-Eric Vergne | DS Techeetah | 34.986s |
19 | Oliver Turvey | NIO | 44.377s |
20 | Sam Bird | Virgin | 46.591s |
21 | Lucas di Grassi | Audi | 1m15.119s |
- | Antonio Felix da Costa | DS Techeetah | Software |
- | Daniel Abt | NIO | Engine |
- | Maximilian Guenther | BMW | Not classified |
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