Buemi becomes Formula E Champion in a dramatic final race

Sebastien Buemi was crowned the FIA Formula E Champion under dramatic conditions, while his teammate Nico Prost won the final race.

After a first lap collision between Buemi and Lucas di Grassi it became a battle of the fastest lap in Battersea Park. It was one that Buemi came out ahead of, and arguably was the right outcome as the Swiss driver couldn’t do anything about the original incident.

The light went out and the pack of drivers set off, and it took only until Turn 3 for a massive moment to occur. Di Grassi hit the rear end of Buemi while braking for the corner, nearly taking out Nico Prost too. With Buemi without his rear wing and Di Grassi having a wheel pointing sideways, both had to go back to the pits.

That wasn’t the only incident to occur during the race, and wasn’t the only time the safety car had to come out. Loic Duval hit the side of Simona de Silvestro while passing her on Lap 4, although both cars kept going. Sam Bird however stopped out on track on Lap 8, retiring from the race and bringing out the safety car.

The safety car came in at the end of Lap 9, and then came back out on Lap 12. After Robin Frijns damaged Jerome d’Ambrosio’s rear wing going into Turn 14, he was then put into the wall before the Turn 10 chicane by d’Ambrosio’s teammate Loic Duval.

Buemi came out again on Lap 15, but Di Grassi still tried his best to stop him from setting a fast lap by getting out on track in front of him. Out at the front of the pack, Daniel Abt was able to pass Jean-Eric Vergne going into the Turn 10 chicane to elevate himself further up the field.

The Drivers’ Championship was now going to be decided by the fastest lap of the race. Buemi lost time behind the backmarker Ma Qing Hua, but set the bar on Lap 20. Three laps later he improved on that with a 1:24.582.

The Brazilian got close to the time on a few occasions. He was around four tenths off on his attempt on Lap 24. On Lap 30 he went purple in the first two sector, but his lap was just under 0.2 seconds too slow.

 

Buemi tried again on Lap 31, setting the fastest time in the first two sectors. The camera panned to Mike Conway stationary on track, but it didn’t affect the Swiss driver. He was able to improve his time further with a 1:24.150. Di Grassi got out of his car knowing he wouldn’t do any better than that.

While this was going on, the race between the others heated up. At one point d’Ambrosio was able to pass Oliver Turvey on the outside of the main straight. The race ended with Nico Prost crossing the line to win his second race of the weekend, cementing Renault e.dams as the Teams’ Champion.

Abt and Vergne finished second and third respectively, with 17 seconds separating the podium finishers. Nick Heidfeld and Antonio Felix da Costa rounded off the top five for the final race of the season, although multiple penalties were given out for using too much energy.