How Formula E's title fight gave way to Dennis and Di Grassi in the dockyards

As Formula E’s eighth season gets into the business end of the calendar, one could be forgiven for assuming that all four title contenders would be on top form. On-off points leader Stoffel Vandoorne set course for London’s docklands with an 11-point lead over Edoardo Mortara, with Mitch Evans a further five points back and Jean-Eric Vergne on the periphery too.

That all of them at some point dropped the ball for varying reasons meant that the championship’s complexion changed completely ahead of the Seoul finale – also handing an opportunity to the more unfancied players who arrived at the ExCeL to provide a surprise exhibition.

Andretti’s Jake Dennis was the only driver on the grid to have won at the indoors-outdoors east London venue, with ‘other’ winner Alex Lynn no longer part of the electric circus. But given the season Dennis has had, with great qualifying pace unable to temper the American squad’s inconsistent race showings, he felt it would be difficult to achieve a repeat of last year’s heroics.

Where Andretti has struggled in 2021-22 is in its powertrain’s efficiency. Following BMW’s withdrawal, the team no longer has works support to rely on. While the Bavarian manufacturer’s engineers remain present, the software is largely the same as it ended last season with. Other manufacturers have made great strides over the off-season with their maps, pushing Andretti down the pecking order.

This had hurt Andretti the most at the quicker circuits. Mexico in February, for example, was dismal – and Berlin in May was even worse. But London is the slowest circuit of the year and the least energy-intensive, meaning even a reduction from 52kWh to 46kWh of useable energy capacity for both races was considered quite conservative. Even in qualifying trim, where energy saving doesn’t matter, the layout played into Andretti’s hands nicely.

Dennis thus began Saturday in exquisite form. He headed free practice, and then set out his stall in qualifying by topping his group, booking himself a quarter-final tie with Nissan’s Maximilian Guenther – the German making his first duels appearance amid a miserable first season with the team. But Dennis’s former Andretti team-mate couldn’t hold a candle to the lanky Nuneaton native, and was brushed aside by over half a second in the duel.

Vandoorne had to give best to Dennis in their qualifying duel final as the Briton snared a popular home pole

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

Nyck de Vries could not stop Dennis progressing to the final either, setting up an encounter with points leader Vandoorne. The Belgian was the only driver among the ‘Big Four’ to actually make it into the last eight: Mortara struggled to coax any time out of his Venturi package, nor could Vergne from his DS Techeetah. Evans, meanwhile, had to contend with Jaguar being inconsistent in qualifying – and couldn’t make the cut either.

Vandoorne did his utmost to extend his title advantage with points for pole but shipped too much time in the opening pair of sectors as Dennis smoothly scampered around the circuit and collected his first pole of the year to raucous applause. With thousands of home fans in attendance, presumably avoiding some other high-profile non-motorsporting event, the response from the grandstands every time Dennis passed by was of vociferous support. With Vandoorne behind on the grid, probably the one driver not predisposed to risking it all with a do-or-die pass, the Briton was in a good position.

From the get-go, Dennis was in control. He kept the lead at the start and began to try and set the pace, keeping Vandoorne’s Mercedes at arm’s length. The leading pair took their opening attack modes together on the ninth lap, with the two activations of 250kW lasting a minute each, and thus remained glued together – matched for power.

With Vandoorne arguably requiring a strategic advantage to get one over Dennis, he was asked to take attack mode on lap 17, which Dennis also covered off to preserve his lead into the second half of the race. By the close of both their attack modes, Dennis had 2% more energy than the chasing Vandoorne. It looked serene out in front, and it was at this point where Dennis began to break-build, finding a 1.5s lead over Vandoorne – and still with more energy – to extend his advantage.

Vandoorne was told not to take any risks – although he tried a last-ditch attempt to close in on the leader with a late use of Fanboost, but to no avail

Although the championship leader was able to get within a second of Dennis in the final 15 minutes, he remained a percent down on energy as the Avalanche Andretti driver continued to manage his pace out front. Vandoorne, meanwhile, was told not to take any risks – although he tried a last-ditch attempt to close in on the leader with a late use of Fanboost, but to no avail.

It proved enough for Dennis to, at the end of the race, extend his advantage over Vandoorne and claim his second London E-Prix win, having won the Saturday race at the ExCeL last year from second on the grid. He also bagged the fastest lap in the process, completing his Grand Slam at home.

“To replicate what we did last year was absolutely amazing, full house obviously this year with the fans. Crossing the line and hearing the British fans was one of the best moments,” Dennis crooned after the race.

Vandoorne was never able to mount a true challenge against Dennis, who repeated his 2021 Saturday victory

Photo by: Andreas Beil

“The race itself was pretty challenging at the start; I was just trying to manage Nyck and Stoffel really. Obviously they’re team-mates and would work together a little bit and I feel like we did that quite well. I think towards the end of the race we were pretty in control, we were up on energy and just managing the race.

“I think the biggest thing is it’s quite a technical circuit, and I think we’ve mechanically got a very good car – it’s just when we go to the faster circuits we seem to struggle a little bit more. I’m in a pretty good rhythm around here. A clean qualifying lap did 80% of the work today, and then just keeping Stoffel at bay and then just managing his Fanboost towards the end was really the biggest thing.”

Although de Vries had flashed across the line in third, having overcome separate challenges from surprise contender Sergio Sette Camara – whose attempts to open Dragon Penske’s account for the year came to nought, as did his useable energy by the end – and Nick Cassidy, the Kiwi usurped the Dutchman in the stewards’ room.

The New York City winner was throwing the kitchen sink at de Vries in the dying stages of the race, but ‘robust’ defending from the reigning champion kept him at bay. But said defending was too robust for the FIA, who handed de Vries a five-second penalty.

Showing great pace in the Audi-powered Envision, Cassidy led the way in Sunday practice, about four hundredths quicker than a late effort from Antonio Felix da Costa, who had finally uncovered some pace from the DS hardware. Come qualifying, and Dennis was on top again in his group. As he’d managed to stitch together another strong lap, the title contenders’ efforts began to unravel as both Vandoorne and Mortara did not progress from Group A into the duels. As they sat nervously through Group B, their misfortunes were left uncompounded as Vergne and Evans also failed to progress once again.

Vergne looked to have crept into the top four but was dumped into fifth by a surprise lap from Antonio Giovinazzi, who booked his first place in the duels in a bumper weekend for Dragon. The Italian’s heroics continued as he moved past de Vries in the quarters, but ultimately was not a match for Lucas di Grassi, who appeared to wake up on Sunday morning full of vim and vigour. The Brazilian had initially made it into the duels on Saturday, but had his lap times deleted for apparently impeding Evans – leaving the 2016-17 champion furious, perhaps slightly playing to the camera nestled in the Venturi garage…

Dennis dispatched Sebastien Buemi and da Costa to reach another final, which promised to be a closely fought encounter with di Grassi given their similar laps through each duel. Dennis began with the slenderest of advantages and slowly began to grow it, until di Grassi dropped a clanger in the final sector and shipped a second to the Saturday winner – giving Dennis a second successive pole.

After his second consecutive pole, Dennis led at the start of race two but lost out to Di Grassi

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

But Sunday’s dynamic was altogether different. Attack mode was pegged at three activations, rather than the usual two, and di Grassi was going to hound Dennis in a manner Vandoorne was perhaps not willing to do.

Di Grassi took his first hit of 250kW power on lap 10 of 38, with Dennis responding on the following lap. But once his first four minutes had elapsed, the Venturi driver then took the undercut with his second attack mode on lap 13, which put Dennis at the disadvantage with the attack mode offset as the Brazilian caught up to the Andretti’s six – Dennis needing to take the off-line power boost activation two more times.

Dennis picked up his second activation and closed in on di Grassi, who had picked up the lead, with the Venturi driver returning the favour three laps later on lap 21 once Dennis’s activation had elapsed. Although Dennis had track position, he would have to cede it once more. Managing to defend the lead until di Grassi’s final attack mode activation had run out, Dennis was told to spend some energy in building a gap to collect attack mode and potentially grab the lead on his return to the racing line.

Di Grassi admitted that the pace and better energy of de Vries worried him – but a wheel issue on the Frieslander’s car meant that he could not challenge Dennis for second

Dennis got the lead up to 0.9s, but that proved to be the zenith of his advantage – and di Grassi closed up again, forcing Dennis to take his last attack mode with a 0.4s lead. It proved fatal to his hopes of a double victory and, with his tyres beginning to feel the burn, he could not kick on. Instead, di Grassi used the opportunity to open the gap to an eventually unassailable 3.2s, claiming his first win since Berlin last year.

“Basically, the first two attack modes didn’t matter – I just needed to stay close to Jake with more energy,” di Grassi told Autosport. “And then the third attack mode I had to use to overtake him, because I knew on track would have been difficult.

“So we undercut and we had more energy. When he used his attack mode, he could not get close. Then I was pretty sure the race was settled.”

Once Dennis’s attack mode had elapsed, di Grassi could open the lead up even further, and was left relatively unbothered over the remainder of the race as Dennis had to contend with a hard-charging de Vries at the close of the race. Di Grassi admitted that the pace and better energy of de Vries worried him – but a wheel issue on the Frieslander’s car meant that he could not challenge Dennis for second.

Di Grassi and Dennis shared the podium with de Vries on Sunday, but it was Vandoorne who had the last laugh with his championship lead extended

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

In the championship stakes, Vandoorne claimed fourth from 13th on the grid in an excellent drive, although he had been outdone by Evans over the majority of the race until the Kiwi’s Jaguar began to exhibit “strange behaviour” under braking. Evans, lying fourth and looking good to chip Vandoorne’s title lead down to 22 points, instead came to a crawl and had to perform a power cycle in the chicane runoff to try and cure his ailments.

Although the car got rolling again, Evans felt it was “unraceable” and thus his day was over. Instead of Evans closing the championship lead, Vandoorne added another 12 points onto his buffer. Daresay that the level-headed ex-McLaren F1 driver now has one hand at least hovering over the 2022 trophy, as his consistency on the scoreboard now looks imperious.

And thus, in just a matter of days, we’ll likely have a new Formula E champion as the season closes out in Seoul for the last race of the Gen2 era. But on a weekend where football ‘came home’ as England won the women’s Euro 2022, London once again watched a home hero take victory – at least, before England was beaten by Brazil on Sunday.

Fourth place in race two as his rivals toiled completed a strong weekend for Vandoorne

Photo by: Andreas Beil