Vandoorne claims Mercedes maiden Formula E win on home soil
Stoffel Vandoorne secures a maiden Formula E race victory for Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team after a superb victory at the Berlin Templehof Airport.
After taking Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E’s first pole position, Vandoorne made a good start after beating Sebastien Buemi who just managed to maintain second after Rene Rast failed to make the move on the Nissan driver.
Down the back of the grid, it was former champion Jean-Eric Vergne who made the best start up to eighteenth place ahead of his team-mate Antonio Felix Da Costa.
Venturi racer Edoardo Mortara managed to get ahead of Robin Frijns into the first corner, but ultimately the Swiss-Italian racer lost out to the Dutchman after Frijns retook the place at turn 12 on lap four.
After overtaking Rast on the first lap, Nyck De Vries deployed his first attack mode (AM) which allows him to put the pressure on the top two which meant that by the time Buemi took his first AM, the Dutchman passed the Nissan racer. But in using his AM, Buemi retook second place.
But not content with that, the two Mercedes driver then used their second attack mode when most of the field were yet to activate even their first AM.
With the DS Techeetah drivers making their way through the order, Jean-Eric Vergne nudged his way past the BMW i-Andretti Motorsport driver Alex Sims into turn seven for which the Frenchman was warned by the stewards.
Meanwhile, the sister Audi of Lucas Di Grassi started moving forward but despite being attack mode, getting past Alex Lynn but he could not quite squeeze his way past Robin Frijns at the end of the Brazilian’s first attack mode.
But he wasn’t the only Audi-powered car on the move as Sam Bird was making his way through the order after starting from fourteenth, he was able to move his way into fifth position.
But after using Frijns as a roadblock for the Briton, Di Grassi moved past the Dutchman into the middle sector. He reported that he had bent steering, he started to slip through the order and picked up a puncture while battling with Maxmillian Gunther which brought Frijns’s season to an abrupt close.
After having so much more energy than Buemi throughout the race, De Vries managed to pass Buemi on the penultimate lap of the race.
In the mid-pack, Vergne managed to finish a superb seventh after starting from twenty-first on the grid to finish third in the points classification.
So after leading from pole position, Vandoorne secured Mercedes first victory with De Vries completing a Mercedes 1-2 just ahead of Buemi who secured another podium finish.
Rene Rast came home fourth, ahead of Bird, Di Grassi, Vergne, with Lynn, Felix Da Costa and Edoardo Mortara completing the points finishers.
As the Formula E paddock leaves Berlin, Mercedes have established themselves as a race-winning outfit ahead of season seven of the all-electric racing series.