Lucas Di Grassi is the winner of the FIA Formula E season 3, driving for Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport, the Brazilian won the penultimate round of the season on Saturday and a P7 finish today was good enough to give him his first championship win in Formula E.
A total of 181 points from Di Grassi gave him a clear title win over rival Buemi who ended the season in second place with 157 points. Felix Rosenqvist was third with 127 points while Sam Bird finished the season in fourth place with 122 points. In the manufacturer’s category, Renault e.Dams finished the season on top with 268 points, ABT with 248 points and Mahindra Racing in third with 215 points.
Di Grassi had failed to win the title in the previous two rounds, having finished third and second in the first and second season respectively Sebastien Buemi was the defending champion but he came to the Montreal ePrix without much luck. He was disqualified on Saturday and managed only P4, coming from a bad qualifying session.
On Sunday, Buemi started the season 3 finale at Montreal ePrix from 13th place, there was contact after the start and his Renault picked up bodywork of damaged cars. The collision was between Daniel Abt and Stephane Sarrazin. Renault called Buemi to the pits despite having managed to get rid of the hanging bodywork. His race was troubled thereafter, and finished in eleventh place with no points. As such, Di Grassi’s P7 finish was good enough to secure him a title win, his first in Formula E.
Winning today’s race was Jean-Eric Vergne from TeCheetah, the only customer racing team in Formula E. This was their first win in Fe as well, and given the limited testing resources they have, it’s an incredible result from them.
Vergne fought with pole starter Felix Rosenqvist from Mahindra in the second half of the race. The Mahindra had a better strategy of stopping early but also meant they would run one lap more after swapping cars. This helped Vergne to close in on him before taking the lead to give TeCheetah a much needed win.
Rosenqvist finished second ahead of a challenging Jose Maria Lopez of Virgin Racing. Teammate Sam Bird finished fourth leading Nick Heidfeld of Mahindra, Daniel Abt, Di Grassi, Sarrazin from TeCheetah, Jerome d’Ambrosio from Dragon Racing and Venturi’s Tom Dillmann.
Season 4 of Formula E will kick off on December 2, 2017 in Hong Kong.
