Formula E Round 5- Chaos in Cape Town

Formula E entered South Africa for the first time this weekend for what was a chaotic round five of the championship.

Practice

Practice was a relatively calm affair with both Edoardo Mortara and Nick Cassidy topping FP1 & FP2 respectively. There was one major issue however as in FP1 Sebastian Buemi had a serious crash which while thankfully it was repaired in time for quali. Buemi still lost large amounts of running.

Qualifying

Quali began with the news that all Mahindra cars including the customer team ABT would be withdrawn from the weekend due to a rear suspension problem that would not be fixed at the track. This has again set back a manufacturer that has been very inconsistent so far this season.

The cars that did take part in the session however did provide one of the fastest sessions in the championships history. The qualifiers into the duels from Group A were Sacha Fenestraz, Nick Cassidy, Pascal Weherlein and Jean Eric Vergne.

The Group B session was a lot quieter however with Rene Rast, Mitch Evans, Buemi and Maximilian Gunther qualifying for the group stage. There was one huge crash with both Mortara and Sam Bird crashing badly to the point where they could too miss the race like the Mahindra’s.

The duels went like this:

Quarter-finals

QF4

1. Maximilian Guenther Maserati MSG Racing – 1:08.740
2. Rene Rast Neom McLaren -1:08.962

QF3

1. Mitch Evans Jaguar TCS Racing – 1:08.429
2. Sebastien Buemi Envision Racing – 1:11.937

QF2

1. Sacha Fenestraz Nissan -1:08.467
2. Jean-Eric Vergne DS Penske – 1:08.520

QF1

1. Nick Cassidy Envision Racing – 1:08.446
2. Pascal Wehrlein TAG Heuer Porsche – 1:08.598

Semi-finals

SF2

1. Maximilian Guenther Maserati MSG Racing – 1:08.212
2. Mitch Evans Jaguar TCS Racing – 1:08.568

SF1

1. Sacha Fenestraz Nissan -1:08.357
2. Nick Cassidy Envision Racing – 1:08.467

Final

1. Sacha Fenestraz Nissan -1:07.848
2. Maximilian Guenther Maserati MSG Racing – 1:08.270

The race

The race began with only 17 runners after the Mahindras and bird were withdrawn. It was a rather chaotic race with two safety car periods for example on lap one championship leader Pascal Wehrlein crashed into Buemi which ruined both cars races. This allowed pole sitter Fenestraz to be overtaken by Maximilian Gunther while this move was legal and the race setttled down for a while., Gunther and fenestraz both knocked themselves out of race contention later on via a badly timed attack mode and a crash.

The race didnt go well for Mitch Evans and Jake dennis as they were sent to the back for overenergy use and incorrect tyre pressures respectivly.

The race battle towards the end was mainly between Vergne and Da Costa who had one of the greatest battles in Formula E for quite a number of years with Da Costa making moves at 200+ KPH and therefore producing one of Formula E’s best wins for a while for porsche as he orginally started 11th and came through the field.

My thoughts

After a very good race with plenty of drama and a great win for Da Costa, I’m very satisfied with the Cape town track and I am looking forward to it featuring in future seasons. However, i am concerned with the withdrawal of a major manufacturer in Mahindra and hope their rear suspension issue can be fixed for the next race.

The Results

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h	Retirement	Points
1	13	Antonio Felix da Costa	Porsche Team	32	42’25.403					25
2	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	DS Penske	32	42’25.684	0.281	0.281			19
3	37	Nick Cassidy	Envision Racing	32	42’27.211	1.808	1.527			15
4	58	René Rast	McLaren	32	42’27.611	2.208	0.400			12
5	16	Sébastien Buemi	Envision Racing	32	42’28.059	2.656	0.448			10
6	33	Dan Ticktum	NIO Formula E Team	32	42’28.612	3.209	0.553			8
7	1	Stoffel Vandoorne	DS Penske	32	42’29.613	4.210	1.001			6
8	17	Norman Nato	Nissan e.dams	32	42’33.985	8.582	4.372			4
9	36	Andre Lotterer	Andretti Autosport	32	42’34.158	8.755	0.173			2
10	5	Jake Hughes	McLaren	32	42’35.878	10.475	1.720			1
11	9	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	32	42’39.586	14.183	3.708
12	3	Sergio Sette Camara	NIO Formula E Team	32	42’40.317	14.914	0.731
13	27	Jake Dennis	Andretti Autosport	32	43’04.249	38.846	23.932
14	23	Sacha Fenestraz	Nissan e.dams	32	43’13.016	47.613	8.767			3
	7	Maximilian Gunther	Maserati Racing	20	27’23.495	12 Laps	12 Laps		Retirement
	48	Edoardo Mortara	Maserati Racing	1	1’33.486	31 Laps	19 Laps		Retirement
	94	Pascal Wehrlein	Porsche Team	0					Retirement