FP1-
With the sun beating down on the Rome circuit, the TAG Heuer Porsche of Pascal Wehrlein went quickest in the first free practice session of the double header.
The Jaguar TCS Racing driver, Sam Bird rounded out FP1 in second, with the Maserati MSG Racing of Edoardo Mortara completing the top three.
Championship leader, Jake Dennis had some early concerns about his steering column. As a result of this, the Brit spent most of the valuable session in the garage, as his Andretti squad tried their best to fix his X99 Electric Gen3 – with the Brit complaining of poor confidence in the rear axel.
The last team out of their garages was Mahindra Racing. Mahindra and customer ABT CUPRA cars both had a small software issue in the rookie test and continued into FP1, with all four drivers with Mahindra power units spending time in their pit boxes at points.
Antonio Felix da Costa (TAG Heuer Porsche) spun at Turn 7, bringing out a brief yellow flag. A little later on, his old teammate Jean-Eric Vergne also found the limits of the street circuit as he pirouetted at Turn 14 whilst on a push lap.
FP2-
Three time Rome race winner, Mitch Evans closed out Free Practice 2 with a meteoric 1m37.881s firing him to the top of the timesheets, and almost half a second inside last year’s pole time.
Several drivers were using the 30 minute session to explore the limits of the circuit with a few early yellow flags for offs at Turn 7. The likes of Mitch Evans and both NIO 333 drivers found themselves doing a 180 degree spin down the escape road.
Evans had already gone quickest before he embarked on his final lap as the timer expired in the session. He went another four-tenths quicker than his previous best.
Portland winner, Nick Cassidy found himself with work to do in 15th, following up on just 12th in FP1. The Kiwi is just a point behind Dennis in the standings.
Qualifying-
Jaguar TCS Racing’s Mitch Evans strolled to Julius Baer Pole Position making it his second of the season – heading a front row lockout for the team.
Evans and Bird headed into the Final knowing they’d achieved their second front-row lockout in Formula E. Evans had been 0.6 seconds quicker than the rest in FP2, but there was nothing between the two over the opening sector of the lap until Bird made a mistake dropped him well over a second back from his teammte.
Standings leader, Jake Dennis said he didn’t feel quite at one with the car in qualifying, he made the Duels but only managed seventh.
That said, he’s ahead of his closest title rival Nick Cassidy – the Envision driver down in ninth and third-placed Pascal Wehrlein also failed to make the Duels – knocked out of Group A.
Fenestraz faced Bird in the first Semi. The Nissan looked rapid throughout but with the track temperature hitting over 50 celsius, it looked liked it’d be Bird in the final as Fenestraz slipped up and made a costly error.
Evans faced Buemi. As the Jaguar driver started promosingly, taking a slender advantage of less than a tenth of a second over the first half of the lap. More than a second split the two, Buemi would nevertheless be happy with fourth.
The full top 10 are- P1: Evans, P2: Bird, P3: Fenestraz, P4: Buemi, P5: Rast, P6: Mortara, P7: Dennis, P8: Guenther, P9: Cassidy and P10: Wehrelein.
Round 13-
Mitch Evans became the first polesitter to stride to victory in Rome int he Hankook Rome E-Prix Round 13, besting the rest in a race of two halves, split by a massive multi-car shunt involving his teammate Sam Bird and several other drivers.
Evans was jumped by Bird off the line, with Jaguar looking like playing it tactically, ensuring the Kiwi could conserve energy in the slipstream behind the sister I-TYPE 6.
The pair then swapped positions again after the opening of the race before Sacha Fenestraz made it by Bird first and then Evans for the lead through the first round of Attack Mode activations and a brief break in the action for a Safety Car while Andre Lotterer’s car was recovered – the German finding the wall.
High drama on Lap 9 saw multiple cars caught up in a massive shunt at the quickest part of the track with Bird losing the rear of his Jaguar over the tricky, rapid and undulating section between Turns 6 and 7.
Sebastien Buemi, clipped back end of the Jaguar on his way through – the Swiss narrowly missing a square-on impact. Edoardo Mortara flew into the side of Bird’s car as it sat stricken in the middle of the circuit while several other drivers picked their way through and escaped with minor damage.
That meant big ramifications for the teams and drivers – who all thankfully escaped unharmed in testament to Gen3 resilience.
Fourteen cars made the restart, with Fenestraz heading the pack away with Evans in tow. From there, Dennis seized the initiative, passing Evans with a sweeping move around the outside of the Jaguar through Turn 5.
It was comfortable for Evans to the flag, as headed home Cassidy while Maximilian Guenther also dispatching Dennis for third at the flag.
The full top 10 are- P1: Evans, P2: Cassidy, P3: Guenther, P4: Dennis, P5: Vergne, P6: Mortara, P7: Nato, P8: Sette, P9: Wehrlein and P10: Fenestraz.
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