Dennis Wins First London Race To Close In On Standings Lead

Grid Talk Reporter 16:42 24/07/2021

Jake Dennis has closed the gap at the top of the Formula E standings after taking the second win of his rookie season in London.

The BMW i Andretti driver's victory in his home nation came after forcing fellow countryman and polesitter Alex Lynn into critical error, that most likely stopped the latter from winning just up the road from where he grew up. Earlier on, Lynn had led away from his first FE pole position in four years, and the leading duo had taken their first attack mode - raised to eight minutes for this weekend’s races - on the same lap However, Lynn and Dennis' decisions differed on the activation of their second.

Mahindra’s Lynn took his second attack mode before Dennis and dropped into second place behind the BMW i Andretti driver. He remained within a second of Dennis and would have retaken the lead when Dennis took his second attack mode had he not made a costly lock-up into the Turn 10 right-hand hairpin. The mistake cost Lynn a couple of seconds and it allowed Dennis to take his attack mode and remain ahead of the chasing Lynn.

Lynn’s pace dropped after the error and Dennis was able to build a significant advantage out front to take his second FE victory of the season by 5.341 seconds. Lynn fell into the clutches of Nyck de Vries in the closing laps of the race, and the Mercedes EQ driver passed Lynn into the Turn 10 hairpin with the help of fanboost.

-Full event results

Nissan e.dams’ Buemi finished in fourth place to register his best result of the season, before he and teammate Oliver Rowland were disqualified for energy overuse. André Lotterer inherited fourth place for Porsche ahead of the two Audi drivers of René Rast (with damage to the front of his car) and Lucas di Grassi. Stoffel Vandoorne made it two Mercedes cars in the top 10 in eighth place ahead of defending champion António Félix da Costa and Rowland. FE rookie Norman Nato was running in 10th place but he picked up a puncture whilst trying to build a big enough gap to Rowland to overcome the five-second penalty he received for a collision with Dragon Penske Autosport’s Sérgio Sette Camara earlier in the race. On the opening lap, Mahindra’s Alex Sims was fed into the wall before the downhill Turn 6 and triggered a string of incidents as the drivers struggled to navigate his stricken car at one of the tightest sections of the circuit.

Jaguar were the biggest losers of the day as Sam Bird picking up terminal damage when he was squeezed between what he described as “a rock and a hard place”, and his team-mate Mitch Evans had to pit for repairs after sustaining damage. Evans re-joined but finished down in 16th place while Bird still leads the championship despite suffering his fourth retirement of the season. Another title contender Robin Frijns had a troubled run to 15th position with a five-second penalty for colliding with Joel Eriksson on the entry to the Turn 11 left-hand hairpin. Two-time Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne qualified on the back row of the grid but a pre-race invertor change awarded him a 10-second stop-go penalty.

2021 London E-Prix 1 Classification