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Report Formula E ePrix New York City: Cassidy wins despite crash

Report Formula E ePrix New York City: Cassidy wins despite crash

16-07-2022 19:56
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GPblog.com

Nick Cassidy booked his first victory in Formula E during the ePrix of New York City. The New Zealander started the opening race of the double header from pole position. After a chaotic final stage due to a rain shower about ten minutes before the end Lucas Di Grassi got P2 and Robin Frijns ended on P3.

Cassidy led from pole, but despite losing the lead to Di Grassi at times, he regained it thanks to the use of attack mode. Frijns, meanwhile, worked his way through the field from seventh place, overtaking Stoffel Vandoorne in the final minutes at the same time as Di Grassi, while the Belgian dropped from second to fourth at a corner.

Sketchy conditions

Although Vandoorne finished fourth, he was lucky. With twelve minutes left on the clock, the rain began to pour down harder and harder. Despite the cars being fitted with all-weather tyres, conditions were grim and the drivers had to use a lot of skill to keep the cars on track.

However, in a time of about 30 seconds, the rain fell much harder. Once they reached turn six, the track was completely flooded. The leaders suffered from aquaplaning and skidded into the barrier where Mortara also almost suffered. Frijns only just avoided the chaos and led the race with Mortara second and Mitch Evans, who had been eleventh, now third, but almost inevitably a full course yellow eventually turned into a red flag.

Race not to be resumed

After a long red flag to clear the cars in the barrier, race director Scott Elkins announced that the race would not be resumed and they would use the score from before the chaotic moment due to the rain as the final score, leaving Cassidy as the winner.

Edoardo Mortara finished the race in fifth place. As he finished just one place behind title rival Vandoorne, he retained the championship lead of twelve points.

Best result for Buemi

Sebastien Buemi finished sixth for Nissan, his best result of the season so far. Pascal Wehrlein finished seventh for Porsche, with Jake Dennis eighth, Sam Bird ninth and Nyck de Vries tenth. The other two title challengers, Mitch Evans and Jean-Eric Vergne, failed to score any points. Evans finished just outside the points in eleventh, while Vergne spun on the first lap and finished 18th.