Formula E: Jerome d’Ambrosio wins 2019 Marrakesh ePrix
By Asher Fair
Jerome d’Ambrosio earned his first victory of the 2018-2019 Formula E season in the season’s second race, the Marrakesh ePrix.
Mahindra Racing’s Jerome d’Ambrosio snapped a 30-race win drought by winning the second race of the 2018-2019 Formula E season, the Marrakesh ePrix. His win drought was the third longest win drought among active drivers and has been active since he won the 2016 Mexico City ePrix. The victory is the third of his Formula E career.
D’Ambrosio, who started 31-lap race around the 14-turn, 1.83-mile (2.945-kilometer) Circuit International Automobile Moulay El Hassan temporary street circuit in Marrakesh, Morocco in 10th place in his #64 Spark-Mahindra, won it by just 0.143 seconds over Envision Virgin Racing’s Robin Frijns in second following a restart with just one lap remaining.
Virgin Racing’s Sam Bird, who started the race from the pole position, finished it in third place in his #2 Spark-Audi to round out the podium. He finished just 0.461 seconds behind d’Ambrosio.
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BMW i Andretti Motorsport’s Alexander Sims and DS Techeetah’s Jean-Eric Vergne rounded out the top five by finishing in fourth and fifth place in their #27 Spark-BMW and #25 Spark-DS Automobiles, respectively.
Vergne started the race in second place and tried to take the lead away from Bird in the first turn on the first lap, but he ended up spinning out and dropping to the back of the field as a result of it. His fifth place finish in this race is his second consecutive top five finish that he has earned after rallying back, as he battled back to finish in second in the season opener, the Ad Diriyah ePrix, last month after serving a drive-through penalty.
Techeetah’s Andre Lotterer, Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler’s Lucas di Grassi, Nissan e.dams’ Sebastien Buemi, Panasonic Jaguar Racing’s Mitch Evans and Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler’s Daniel Abt rounded out the top 10 by finishing in sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th place in their #36 Spark-DS Automobiles, #66 Spark-Audi, #23 Spark-Nissan, #20 Spark-Jaguar and #1 Spark-Audi, respectively.
The race victory appeared to be headed to BMW i Andretti Motorsport’s Antonio Felix da Costa, who won the season opener last month and took the lead away from Bird in today’s race before it reached its halfway mark.
With only a few minutes to go, da Costa and Sims were running in first and second place, respectively, and they were well ahead of the rest of the field. However, they made contact, forcing da Costa to retire and sending Sims down to fourth place.
This prevented what could have been BMW i Andretti Motorsport’s first 1-2 finish after securing their first Formula E victory in the season opener.
This allowed d’Ambrosio to take the lead, and he did not give it up during the one-lap shootout that occurred following the safety car period that took place as a result of the incident between da Costa and Sims.
The race featured a total of two lead changes among three drivers. Bird, da Costa and d’Ambrosio all led at least one lap of the race, with da Costa leading more laps than anybody else in the field with 15 laps led. Bird led 10 laps while d’Ambrosio led the other six. Di Grassi recorded the fastest lap of the race.
Here are the full race results of the 2019 Marrakesh ePrix.
Race Results
1st – Jerome d’Ambrosio
2nd – Robin Frijns
3rd – Sam Bird
4th – Alexander Sims
5th – Jean-Eric Vergne
6th – Andre Lotterer
7th – Lucas di Grassi
8th – Sebastien Buemi
9th – Mitch Evans
10th – Daniel Abt
11th – Jose Maria Lopez
12th – Maximilian Gunther
13th – Edoardo Mortara
14th – Nelson Piquet Jr.
15th – Oliver Rowland
16th – Oliver Turvey
17th – Tom Dillmann
18th – Felipe Massa
19th – Antonio Felix da Costa
20th – Gary Paffett
21st – Pascal Wehrlein
22nd – Stoffel Vandoorne
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The next race on the 2018-2019 Formula E schedule is the Santiago ePrix, which is the third of 13 races on this season’s schedule. This race is scheduled to take place on Saturday, January 26, and it is set to take place at Parque O’Higgins Circuit in Santiago, Chile. Be sure not to miss it.