LONDON — Lucas di Grassi took his maiden win for ROKiT Venturi Racing in the SABIC London E-Prix Round 14, overcoming yesterday’s round 13 winner Jake Dennis in a hard-fought, 38-lap battle on the street circuit at ExCeL London.
Di Grassi emerged from the last of three mandatory attack mode activations with enough in-hand to ensure he would make it by Dennis when the Brit jumped for his last 30kW boost.
Home-crowd favorite Dennis had followed up yesterday’s win with a start from Julius Bär Pole Position, but the Brazilian stretched his advantage over the final few laps into TAG Heuer Added Time to take the checkered flag.
Nyck de Vries came home third, while his Mercedes-EQ teammate and standings leader Stoffel Vandoorne clambered to fourth from 13th on the grid. His closest title rival Mitch Evans had a late technical problem that prematurely ended his London race and dealt a hammer blow to his title chances with a non-score.
Edoardo Mortara did his utmost to claim points from 17th on the grid but a scrappy, combative performance could only yield 13th position. Jean-Éric Vergne retired early on, all but ending his Drivers’ World Championship charge.
António Félix da Costa fought to fifth with Sebastien Buemi producing his second-best result of season eight in sixth, Robin Frijns in seventh and Sam Bird in eighth.
Sérgio Sette Câmara finally earned the first points of the season after running out of usable energy yesterday in round 13 despite hassling the top four throughout. Pascal Wehrlein rounded out the top 10.
It now looks to be a head-to-head between Evans and Vandoorne for the title with 58 points up for grabs in two weeks at the Hana Bank Seoul E-Prix double-header weekend.
The Belgian now holds a commanding 36-point margin over the Jaguar driver in the points table.