Nico Prost dominated Saturday’s London ePrix on the streets of Battersea Park in London after starting from pole position.
For his Renault e.dams teammate Sebastien Buemi, however, it was a much more challenging race as he and championship rival Lucas di Grassi had to work their way up through the field.
Prost led the field away for the first of 33 laps Saturday afternoon while di Grassi started 10th and Buemi started 12th after rain mixed up the order in qualifying. The two championship contenders worked their ways up into 6th and 7th positions respectively before the round of stops.
The race was incident free ahead of the pit stops but, as they came back out on course, Robin Frijns soon found himself rapidly losing positions. As Frijns fell back behind the title rivals, he went wheel-to-wheel with Di Grassi’s teammate Daniel Abt. Frijns and Abt came together, bringing out a collision that led to the Safety Car being deployed.
When the Safety Car came in, Buemi continued to hound Di Grassi but their battle was broken up when Sam Bird passed Buemi. However, the pass took place under the yellow flag as Oliver Turvey had just crashed in front of them. While Bird was not asked by the race officials to hand back the position, his car broke on the final lap and he lost two spots.
Di Grassi had a one-point lead over Buemi heading into Saturday’s race, but now he has extended that to three points ahead of Sunday’s finale.
Unofficial race results:
1. Nico Prost - Renault e.dams
2. Bruno Senna - Mahindra Racing
3. Jean-Eric Vergne - DS Virgin Racing
4. Lucas di Grassi - ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport
5. Sebastien Buemi - Renault e.dams
6. Antonio Felix da Costa - Team Aguri
7. Sam Bird - DS Virgin Racing
8. Nick Heidfeld - Mahindra Racing
9. Jerome d’Ambrosio - Dragon Racing
10. Mike Conway - Venturi
11. Simona de Silvestro - Andretti
12. Stephane Sarrazin - Venturi
13. Ma Qing Hua - Team Aguri
14. Nelson Piquet Jr. - NEXTEV TCR
15. Oliver Turvey - NEXTEV TCR
16. Loic Duval - Dragon Racing (DNF)
17. Robin Frijns - Andretti (DNF)
18. Daniel Abt - ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport (DNF)
