The first Formula E round of the season was a siesta not a fiesta

While most anticipated an intense weekend to introduce GEN3. Overall bar qualifying, the whole weekend left fans having an early evening siesta rather than a Mexican fiesta.

Here is how it went down:

Practice

FP1 took place at 22:30 (GMT) on Friday evening and was a much familiar affair for Formula E with DS in its all new Penske look finishing in P1 with Jean Èric Vergne at the helm.

One impressive turn of form was debutant Jake Hughes getting his new McLaren into P2 and impressing the entire paddock and potentially creating whispers of a potential race win for Jake on Saturday evening.

FP2 was a more interesting affair with for example Porsche (who left testing scratching their heads with a rather underperforming car) somehow finding pace to finish P1. This coupled with teams like NIO finishing in the top ten shows GEN3 has somewhat mixed up the grid in time for qualifying.

Qualifying

Qualifying was the most exciting part of the weekend. Formula E runs the unique Qualifying in racing by using a Champions League style group and knockout format. What was most surprising was both DS penske cars failed to escape their groups and Rene Rast in his McLaren along with both Jaguars missing out too. This gave a very captivating knockout set of fastest lap wins duels.

For example, in duel one you had old rivals, Lucas Di Grassi versus Sebastian Buemi. Duel two was Andre Lotterer versus a shock duel entrant Sacha Fenestraz in his Nissan. Duel three was an all British affair was Dan Ticktum taking on Jake Hughes and finally, duel four was Jake Dennis versus Pascal Wehrlein.

These finished with DIiGrassi, Lotterer, Fenestraz, Ticktum and Dennis coming out on top.

The two semi finals were there for Di Grassi v Lotterer and Hughes v Dennis.

The winner of these were Di Grassi and Dennis who went on to fight for pole with Di Grassi getting his first pole position since he drove for Audi.

The Race

While the race was billed to be this huge blast of racing fiesta, it somewhat under delivered. This is down to two main things, firstly you had three safety cars due to crashes and various mechanical issues from drivers such as Sam Bird. This really kept the action from getting going.

This coupled with the sudden strength of Jake Dennis and his Porsche powered Andretti meant he and the factory Porsche in Wehrlein walked away with the top two positions and left everyone watching a rather underwhelming battle for P3 with Lucas Di Grassi making his car as wide as the United States and preventing Jake Hughes and Lotterer from overtaking.

So these two underwhelming events plus a pretty flat midfield battle left most thinking why on earth did we’re spending so long getting hyped up when the race so under delivered.

Race Results in Full

1		27	Jake Dennis		Andretti Autosport	41	58’25.974			110.6		26
2		94	Pascal Wehrlein		Porsche Team	41	58’33.790	7.816	7.816	110.4		18
3		11	Lucas di Grassi		Mahindra Racing	41	58’44.585	18.611	10.795	110.1		18
4		36	Andre Lotterer		Andretti Autosport	41	58’45.135	19.161	0.550	110.0		12
5		5	Jake Hughes		McLaren	41	58’46.263	20.289	1.128	110.0		10
6		16	Sébastien Buemi		Envision Racing	41	58’46.688	20.714	0.425	110.0		8
7		13	Antonio Felix da Costa		Porsche Team	41	58’47.025	21.051	0.337	110.0		6
8		9	Mitch Evans		Jaguar Racing	41	58’50.732	24.758	3.707	109.9		4
9		37	Nick Cassidy		Envision Racing	41	58’55.124	29.150	4.392	109.7		2
10		1	Stoffel Vandoorne		Dragon Racing	41	58’55.636	29.662	0.512	109.7		1
11		7	Maximilian Gunther		Maserati Racing	41	58’56.250	30.276	0.614	109.7
12		25	Jean-Eric Vergne		Dragon Racing	41	58’57.115	31.141	0.865	109.7
13		8	Oliver Rowland		Mahindra Racing	41	58’57.511	31.537	0.396	109.7
14		51	Nico Müller		Team Abt	41	58’57.925	31.951	0.414	109.6
15		23	Sacha Fenestraz		Nissan e.dams	41	58’58.329	32.355	0.404	109.6
16		3	Sergio Sette Camara		NIO Formula E Team	41	59’01.179	35.205	2.850	109.5
17		33	Dan Ticktum		NIO Formula E Team	41	59’40.346	1’14.372	39.167	108.3
18		58	René Rast		McLaren	37	53’50.748	4 Laps	4 Laps	108.3
	dnf	48	Edoardo Mortara		Maserati Racing	17	26’31.088	24 Laps	20 Laps		Retirement
	dnf	10	Sam Bird		Jaguar Racing	5	8’31.705	36 Laps	12 Laps		Retirement
	dnf	17	Norman Nato		Nissan e.dams	2	3’21.459	39 Laps	3 Laps		Retirement
	dnf	4	Robin Frijns		Team Abt	0					Retirement