DS Techeetah’s António Félix da Costa has won the 2019/20 Formula E championship after completing Round 9 in 2nd place. His teammate Jean-Éric Vergne won the race (the fourth of six in Berlin) to help DS Techeetah wrap-up the Teams’ championship as well.
· Da Costa wins the Formula E championship with two races to spare
· Round 9 win elevates Vergne to 2nd in the championship
· Lynn bags his first points finish for Mahindra Racing
Vergne scores his first win of the season
DS Techeetah made clever use of strategy, swapping its drivers’ positions twice to fend off the threat from Nissan.
While running 1st and 2nd, Vergne and da Costa were unable to really pull away from the Nissan duo of Oliver Rowland and Sébastien Buemi. Crucially, the DS Techeetah cars were also running with one percent less usable energy than the Nissan cars.
On lap 13, the team ordered da Costa to swap places with Vergne and attack, giving him some buffer to the Nissans. They were once again ordered to switch places on Lap 30 as they sought to optimise their remaining energy.
Nissan decided to use the same tactic, asking Rowland to move aside for Buemi, who had an energy advantage at the time. However, Vergne and Da Costa were able to resist the pressure from Buemi to hand Techeetah a 1-2 finish.
With this, last season’s champion Vergne has secured his first Formula E win this season. The result also sees him make big gains in the championship as he jumps from 9th to 2nd place in the overall standings.
Mercedes’ Nyck de Vries pipped Rowland to 4th place on the very last lap. They were followed by Audi’s Lucas di Grassi, Jaguar’s Mitch Evans and Porsche’s André Lotterer in 6th, 7th and 8th place, respectively.
Da Costa crowned Formula E champion
A 2nd-place finish was enough for Da Costa to seal the championship with two races to spare. In a season where most drivers have struggled to maintain consistency, the Portuguese driver consistently secured good results. In fact, he won four of the last five rounds.
“This team knew what I could do even when I was finishing nowhere, and they brought me back. A massive thanks to my teammate Jean-Éric Vergne too. He’s a hard competitor but he has helped me out a lot and it’s also thanks to him that I was able to be so quick straight away in this team,” he said after the race. “We had a game-plan and we executed it perfectly today.”
Lynn secures his first points for Mahindra
Alex Lynn had a tough task at hand for the six-race finale in Berlin. The British racer was drafted in to replace Pascal Wehrlein at Mahindra Racing mid-season and had to adapt to a new car in a relatively short amount of time.
Despite securing some impressive results in qualifying, a strong race result has evaded him so far. But he did manage to pick up his first points for the Indian team with a 9th-place finish, despite battling dash display issues in the closing stages of the race.
His teammate, Jérôme d’Ambrosio crossed the chequered flag in 15th place.
The final two races of the 2019/20 Formula E season will take place on August 12 and 13. These final two rounds will use a new circuit configuration of the Tempelhof Airport track featuring tighter, twistier middle and final sectors.
Berlin E-Prix (Round 9) results:
