Felix Rosenqvist won his and Mahindra’s first race in Formula E, beating Lucas di Grassi on track in Berlin.
Nick Heidfeld finished third for the third race in a row, giving Mahindra a double podium. The German is now two points behind Nico Prost in the drivers’ championship battle for third.
Di Grassi started on pole with Rosenqvist in third at the beginning of the race with Jose Maria Lopez in between them. Lopez and his team-mate Sam Bird didn’t have great starts, and both Rosenqvist and Heidfeld were able to get into the top three.
The gap between Di Grassi and Rosenqvist went back and forth until around half way into the race. On Lap 22 Rosenqvist passed Di Grassi for the lead of the race on the outside of the straight after turn 9. He stayed in the lead during the pits and in the final third of the race was faster than the Brazilian.
The result for Di Grassi puts him slightly closer in the championship to Sebastien Buemi. The Swiss driver started in 14th and gradually made his way up the grid throughout the race, making his pit stop when in ninth place.
During the second stint of the race he made up even more places. Di Grassi’s team-mate Daniel Abt didn’t make life difficult for Buemi, and was passed at the beginning of lap 28. By lap 36 the 28-year-old was up to sixth, which turned into fifth after Jean-Eric Vergne picked up a time penalty.
Vergne was in fifth for the second half of the race after getting past Sam Bird in the pits. The Frenchman will settle for ninth after a five-second time penalty moved him from fifth after being added to his overall time.
Jaguar Racing finished out of the points, with Mitch Evans going into the pits early with an issue. Periodically he came back out to set a fast lap, with the last attempt of 1m10.224s more than good enough to put them on 20 points in the teams’ championship.
After losing spots at the beginning of the race, Lopez comfortably finished in fourth position thanks to Vergne keeping other drivers behind him. Bird ended his race in eighth.
Buemi’s team-mate Nico Prost finished just behind in sixth, ahead of Daniel Abt in seventh. Maro Engel rounded off the top 10.
