Long Beach is a nice
place to the Brazilian drivers in Formula E, as proved by Nelson
Piquet Jr. last year with a dominant win at the home of the Shoreline
Drive. History repeated itself this year, but now it was Lucas
di Grassi the man at the top step of
the podium, leaving no doubts he is a top-grade driver.
The start was led by
polesitter Sam Bird
who held his way ahead of di Grassi and the rest of the field.
Championship leader Sebastien Buemi
was taking some daring moves to go up in the table, as Daniel
Abt saw at the last hairpin leading to
Shoreline Drive. But some laps later, Buemi overdoes it and gets into
contact with the back of Robin Frijns although there was no
significant ground lost.
Di Grassi made his
way to the lead on lap 13 with late brake move that left Bird without
reaction. Near halfway the pit stops started and the ABT
Audi driver did a nice job by keeping
himself at the front, but not without a challenge as Sam Bird left
the pits right behind him. Due to a drive through penalty, Buemi was
seen at the bottom of the field. In the middle of the pursuit, Bird
lost control of his car and went to the barriers, although he
returned with apparently no huge problems, leaving the second place
to Stéphane Sarrazin,
in a conservative but good day for the Venturi
driver.
Renault e.DAMS
problems could get worse as Nicolas
Prost also got a penalty due to minimum
pit stop time not being respected, sending him out of his fourth
place. Other driver that had a bad day was Nelson Piquet Jr., who
was sitting at the bottom of the field and ended his race crashing
into the barriers and breaking the front wing of his car. As he was
in the exit of the first chicane, it was better to call the Safety
Car on lap 36.
Two laps later di
Grassi’s job was to hold his place and everybody right behind to
make victory sure. With a good amount of energy left di Grassi was
able to pull away a bit from Sarrazin, bouncing back from being
excluded of the Mexico ePrix results. Sarrazin kept his way in second
and Daniel Abt completed the podium.
Di Grassi leads
Buemi in the standings by a single point as he has 101 points, with
Sam Bird in third way behind both of them, with 71 points. Renault
e.DAMS leads in the teams’ standings with 138 points, with ABT Audi
in second with 132 points and Dragon Racing a bit behind with 112.
Now Formula E returns to Europe right to Paris, France, where the
round seven will be held on April 23rd.
PHOTO: FIA
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