Formula E Round 6: Jaguar samba to a podium lock out in São Paulo

Jaguar took an impressive podium lock out in São Paulo with its factory drivers sandwiched by its customer team in Envision Racing.

Practice

Practice was a subdued affair with teams mostly data gathering for qualifying and understanding the circuit. The headline times in qualifying were Sebastian Buemi in the Envision topping FP1 with a 1:12:341 and Antonio Felix Da Costa in the Porsche topping FP2 1:11:496.

Qualifying

Qualifying threw a few surprises with for example P1&P2 in the title fight in Pascal Wehrlein and Jake Dennis both missing out on the duel stage and starting the race in P18 (penalty) for Wehrlein and P14 for Dennis. Another surprise was only one McLaren getting into the duels and getting knocked out in the quarter-finals.

The biggest headline from the duel stage was Stoffel Vandoorne becoming the ninth different pole sitter in nine races as well as the first for Penske Autosport in 90 races.

The Race

The initial start of the race was chaotic with Norman Nato retiring in one incident and Andre Lotterer, Buemi and Edo Mortara falling down the field in other separate incidents. The main bulk of the race was the podium battle which was like a cycling Peloton with the fact that the São Paulo is so energy intensive. Said battle included Vandoorne, Da Costa, Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy.

This battle was briefly disrupted by Jake Dennis and the NIO of Dan Ticktum coming together and bringing out the safety car. In the latter part of the race Da Costa dropped out of the battle due to a lock-up. The final battle for the podium was between Cassidy, Mitch Evans and now Sam Bird thanks to good energy management and well timed attack modes.

The final laps were very tight with the top three finishing as an all Jaguar powered podium within half a second of each other.

Race Results

1		9	Mitch Evans		Jaguar Racing	35	53’25.536					25
2		37	Nick Cassidy		Envision Racing	35	53’25.820	0.284	0.284			18
3		10	Sam Bird		Jaguar Racing	35	53’26.043	0.507	0.223			16
4		13	Antonio Felix da Costa		Porsche Team	35	53’29.023	3.487	2.980			12
5		25	Jean-Eric Vergne		DS Penske	35	53’29.578	4.042	0.555			10
6		1	Stoffel Vandoorne		DS Penske	35	53’30.112	4.576	0.534			11
7		94	Pascal Wehrlein		Porsche Team	35	53’31.195	5.659	1.083			6
8		5	Jake Hughes		McLaren	35	53’31.677	6.141	0.482			4
9		58	René Rast		McLaren	35	53’32.939	7.403	1.262			2
10		16	Sébastien Buemi		Envision Racing	35	53’33.512	7.976	0.573			1
11		7	Maximilian Gunther		Maserati Racing	35	53’40.728	15.192	7.216
12		36	Andre Lotterer		Andretti Autosport	35	53’40.881	15.345	0.153
13		11	Lucas di Grassi		Mahindra Racing	35	53’44.783	19.247	3.902
14		33	Dan Ticktum		NIO Formula E Team	35	53’44.934	19.398	0.151
15		4	Robin Frijns		Team Abt	35	53’46.287	20.751	1.353
16		8	Oliver Rowland		Mahindra Racing	35	53’52.001	26.465	5.714
17		3	Sergio Sette Camara		NIO Formula E Team	35	53’57.050	31.514	5.049
	dnf	51	Nico Müller		Team Abt	19	33’32.998	16 Laps	16 Laps		Retirement
	dnf	48	Edoardo Mortara		Maserati Racing	19	33’33.333	16 Laps	0.335		Retirement
	dnf	27	Jake Dennis		Andretti Autosport	13	22’53.709	22 Laps	6 Laps		Retirement
	dnf	23	Sacha Fenestraz		Nissan e.dams	6	9’12.924	29 Laps	7 Laps		Retirement
	dnf	17	Norman Nato		Nissan e.dams	0	0.000				Retirement