How Vergne and Vandoorne found redemption in Rome

The spares department of Spark Racing Technology, builder of the Formula E chassis, did a roaring trade in Rome. A constant queue of mechanics took turns placing orders at the kiosk, located behind the pop-up garages, to receive a variety of replacement carbon fibre trinketry over the counter as their original parts lay strewn across the 2.1-mile circuit.

Among those taking turns to wait in line were the crews of DS Techeetah and Mercedes, forced to repair wrecks caused by an ill-positioned start line and a loose manhole cover. But their efforts would be rewarded. Jean-Eric Vergne recovered from a contentious pile-up to more resemble his double title-winning self, who had gone missing for the better part of a year, to score an unlikely victory on Saturday. The day after, Stoffel Vandoorne bagged a second championship win to repay his team for burning the midnight oil to offset the mass damage inflicted by dislodged track furnishings that flicked his Silver Arrow into the wall.

For the second round in succession, practice was marred by an enormous shunt as drivers rehearsed their start procedure. Last time out in Saudi Arabia, Edoardo Mortara was in the wars when a brake-by-wire failure sent his Venturi Racing machine careering into the TecPro barrier. In the Italian capital last weekend, drivers were spared a similar trip to hospital for precautionary checks. But events were no less alarming. Experienced hand Oliver Turvey “completely forgot” the custom for drivers to assemble on the staggered grid after the session and in the absence of yellow flags, he rounded blind Turn 6 to smash into the static cars of Vergne and BMW Andretti racer Jake Dennis.

For Vergne, who was uninjured despite initial footage airing of him doubled over and clutching his neck, the incident didn’t come as a surprise. He said: “We knew from the beginning that there was going to be a crash… it’s inevitable. You have 24 cars in the corner that is not even six metres or seven metres wide. It’s the same as a karting track. You cannot ask us to be racing and to look clean for the fans because that’s impossible in this corner.”

With DS Techeetah debuting its new E-Tense FE21 challenger in Rome, the first event after the amended 5 April homologation window, mechanics were required to make a second powertrain change in as many days. Team principal Mark Preston explained: “It was a repeat because they had to do what they did the night before: change over the whole rear end. But in the crash, you’ve got to be more careful because there’s other things that could have been damaged like bodywork and radiators.”

Mechanics unload the damaged car of Jean-Eric Vergne, DS Techeetah, DS E-Tense FE21

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

The car was repaired and re-stickered in only 100 minutes to enter second practice. But Vergne wouldn’t venture back out as a kerb came free at the Turn 12 chicane and couldn’t be fixed to call time on a delayed session after only 10 minutes of running.

With much of the loss of data and track time to his rivals mitigated by the stoppage, Vergne progressed into the top-six qualifying shootout as Vandoorne ran to his third pole over Andre Lotterer. The Porsche driver didn’t hang around in a bid to net the manufacturer its maiden Formula E win. He attempted a near-immediate pass for first place as the damp race, started behind the safety car, got underway. He dived up the inside into the 90-degree Turn 7 left-hander and the pair collided, which forced Vandoorne down an escape road to rejoin in 13th. Lotterer fell to seventh with a broken front wing to show for his efforts.

That permitted Oliver Rowland, the rapid Nissan e.dams racer missing out on pole after a wall tap bent the steering, to assume the lead. But he clapped the first of many penalties dealt over the weekend for exceeding energy limits – something that surely confused the casual viewer tuning into BBC Two amid the coverage of the death of Prince Philip. As a result, 2016-17 champion Lucas di Grassi became the latest beneficiary of a crazed start to the race as he nabbed the lead.

"Everything could have gone really south at the end of FP1 when I got this massive crash. When I was stopped, [Turvey] just came at massive speed and destroyed a little bit the car. In the race, it was really a question of staying alive" Jean-Eric Vergne

Vergne managed the two uses of the 35kW attack mode boost well to demote di Grassi. He then felt comfortable to let the Brazilian regain position as he fought to manage energy, confident the scheduled remaining six laps would be sufficient to repass for the victory. Vergne needn’t have planned that far ahead, though. A mechanical failure, yet to be diagnosed by Audi, forced di Grassi to slow for “no reason” on the run to Turn 6 as a first win for the team in almost two years slipped through its fingers.

Still the action wasn’t done. The recovering Vandoorne was forced to take avoiding action and he moved off-line where he caught a manhole cover. That jumped the rear into the air, span him into the wall where he was then collected by team-mate Nyck de Vries. “There were no wheels on the ground anymore, I was just a passenger,” was Vandoorne’s assessment. This triggered a safety car – the garish new Mini Electric Pacesetter enjoyed plenty of screen time – that would last to the chequered flag.

With it, Vergne was assured of his 10th win and earned a debut victory for the new DS Techeetah machine. It was a result he hadn’t expected at the start of the greasy race, let alone as his car sat in bits in the garage only hours earlier.

Race winner Jean-Eric Vergne, DS Techeetah on the podium

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

He said: “Everything could have gone really south at the end of FP1 when I got this massive crash. When I was stopped, [Turvey] just came at massive speed and destroyed a little bit the car. In the race, it was really a question of staying alive. Those conditions were very, very tricky. I even went off on the lap to the grid, just trying to feel the track.”

As DS Techeetah celebrated its dramatic change in fortunes, 15 yards down the pitlane all hands were on deck in the frenzied Mercedes garage to pull off a two-car rebuild. The team worked with special dispensation until midnight on Saturday and returned early doors on Sunday to complete the mammoth task ahead of parc ferme coming into place for the 0700 start time of final practice.

The effort was “huge”, reckoned team principal Ian James. “We swapped the power units on both cars as a precautionary measure. There was a fair amount of chassis damage to Stoffel’s in terms of suspension and bodywork. McLaren [Applied] also needed to get the battery out and make sure that was safe. It all takes time. We had an extension to the curfew.”

Persistent light drizzle opened up the oily pores of the new patches of asphalt to create a treacherous track surface in qualifying for race two. Envision Virgin Racing rookie Nick Cassidy mastered the wet-dry conditions to land a brilliant pole ahead of fellow newcomer Norman Nato for Venturi Racing. Once more, however, that advantage wouldn’t be held to the end of the opening lap.

After the safety car led the field away yet again, Cassidy bolted into Turn 7 but a suspected software glitch locked the rear wheels the instant he depressed the brake pedal. He spun backwards and down to 10th. The Super GT and Super Formula champion’s day would get little better when he was later forced into the barrier by Rowland – who clocked a 10-second penalty – after the Brit’s attempted pass.

Nato’s time out front would also be short-lived. Third-starting Porsche recruit Pascal Wehrlein beautifully handled a slide on the way to pulling off a fine pass up the inside on lap four, with Vandoorne a touch clumsier as he bruised his way into second through Turns 14 and 15.

Pascal Wehrlein, TAG Heuer Porsche, Porsche 99X Electric

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Wehrlein’s wait for a first Formula E win goes on. A full-course yellow – triggered by di Grassi crashing out as he span across the nose of a subsequently penalised Sebastien Buemi – stymied his hopes of putting attack mode to good use. That permitted Vandoorne to grab the lead. He then held off qualifying star Alexander Sims, the Mahindra Racing driver lining up sixth, who caught Wehrlein napping for second place as the green flags were waved.

A final safety car was brought into play after Rene Rast glanced the wall, buckled his suspension, which then failed and pitched him into the wall out of the final corner. Vandoorne smartly held up the pack at the restart to ensure the timer ticked by to allow for only a one-lap sprint to the finish. This he controlled to secure a fine 0.666s triumph that he classed simply as “redemption”.

“Yesterday was a pretty emotional day for us,” he continued. “Then I knew in the race that I had the pace to go and win. We were quick when it mattered. The car was very damaged yesterday, and [the mechanics] had a tough job list to get everything ready for today. But the car was perfect again.”

"Once you’ve come to a proper street circuit and won, that should give you confidence. It does. Not only have you got a strong and competitive package on the more traditional circuits, you can also compete on the streets" Ian James

Stretching back to the team’s 1-2 in the final race of last season in Berlin, and including an utterly commanding display for de Vries in the first Diriyah E-Prix, Mercedes has now won at each of the last three circuits it’s visited in Formula E.

Speaking ahead of the Rome races, James reckoned the team couldn’t make the “excuse” of being in its rookie season anymore. But Autosport pre-emptively offered another defence if things in Italy hadn’t gone to plan.

Chiefly owing to the pandemic, the series has been confined to racing through parklands, on airfields and in UNESCO World Heritage Sites over recent times. For a series that prides itself on racing in the heart of the most famous cities in the world, a true street circuit hadn’t graced the calendar since the Bern E-Prix back in June 2019.

Stoffel Vandoorne, Mercedes-Benz EQ, EQ Silver Arrow 02

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Different surfaces, painted white lines, dips and crests plus cracks in the Tarmac were all back on the menu in the EUR region of Rome for a track that snakes its way past the ‘Square Colosseum’. Perhaps Mercedes could have used this as an escape clause should things not have gone its way. But James wouldn’t have to consider that for long, as the marque has now proved its electric prowess in a variety of circumstances.

James said: “Once you’ve come to a proper street circuit and won, that should give you confidence. It does. Not only have you got a strong and competitive package on the more traditional circuits, you can also compete on the streets. Hopefully, we can be confident going into pretty much every race now.”

That confidence is something Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff – in attendance at the weekend – knows all too well from recent times. It also bodes well for the manufacturer ahead of the next double-header. Later this month, the paddock stops at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo, an inaugural Spanish round for Formula E.

Despite the ongoing threat of the pandemic, few teams admitted to running race programmes tailored specifically to the track when pre-season testing was held at the venue late last year. If said teams are to be taken at their word, it arguably shows a lack of foresight given the state of flux the 2021 calendar has been in for some months now. The Valencia circuit was always likely to make its way onto the schedule in a case of ‘needs must’ for organisers.

Valencia now offers another new challenge as it becomes the first pukka permanent track ever to grace the calendar – adapted and temporary iterations of the Marrakech and Mexico City layouts don’t count. Should Mercedes add to its burgeoning Formula E success there, it really can lay claim to being motorsport’s jack and indeed master of all trades.

Nyck de Vries, Mercedes Benz EQ, EQ Silver Arrow 02, Stoffel Vandoorne, Mercedes Benz EQ, EQ Silver Arrow 02

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images