Mortara Overcomes Techeetah Tactics For Standings Lead
Calum Gill 18:24 02/07/2
Venturi Mercedes driver Edoardo Mortara reclaimed the Formula E championship lead by overcoming DS Techeetah’s best team-tactic efforts and taking a third win of 2022 in Marrakesh.
Mortara had emerged in front from a frantic first quarter of the race in which the majority of the field hammered through both their attack mode deployments extremely early, prompting fraught racing between those that did and didn’t have the extra power at any moment. Polesitter António Félix da Costa was pursuing him, but had already declared pre-race that he’d be working to help his title-chasing DS Techeetah team-mate Jean-Éric Vergne. Once Vergne had got back ahead of fellow championship contender Mitch Evans of Jaguar for third, the DS Techeetahs swapped positions with just under 10 minutes to go. Da Costa expressed frustration at the choice of Turn 7 for a switchover place, and Mortara put on a burst of speed as the switch happened behind him, pulling out a bit of a cushion.
Vergne couldn’t make much progress after the Venturi, and da Costa sat in his slipstream asking over team radio for another chance to go after Mortara. He was given that opportunity four minutes from the end, but though he gained on the leader he couldn’t do anything to deny Mortara the win. Vergne then began suffering from battery temperature worries and lost third to Evans on the final lap. Mortara’s team-mate Lucas di Grassi also pulled off a last-lap move to take fifth from reigning champion Nyck de Vries in the best of the works Mercedes. His team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne drove a great race to come from 20th after brake problems in qualifying to take eighth, behind Jake Dennis of Avalanche Andretti.
Sam Bird’s Jaguar was ninth, with Oliver Rowland falling back to 10th for Mahindra following an aggressive early charge into podium contention that left other drivers wondering over team radio if Rowland had any hope of making it to the finish on his energy. Porsche appeared to badly miscalculate its energy strategy. Pascal Wehrlein’s race pace was extremely slow from fourth on the grid and he was a road block early on. Shoved down the order amid some wild racing, he fell right back to 18th but had 3% more energy than most of the field in the closing stages. It was of relatively little use as he could only come back through to 12th.
