Vandoorne leads Mercedes 1-2 in final race of FE season

Stoffel Vandoorne led a 1-2 for Mercedes to win his first Formula E race in the final race of the season at Berlin. 

Mercedes controlled the race with an aggressive Attack Mode strategy to force their rivals hands and hold track position late in the race whilst also protecting themselves from a late race charge.

Nyck De Vries was second behind Vandoorne after racing with Sebastien Buemi and in doing so taking his debut podium. 

Buemi was passed late on in the race after being able to use his Attack Mode to keep De Vries behind. De Vries caught the 2016 champion napping and launched it up the inside with a very clean divebomb to seal second. 

De Vries finishing second enabled Vandoorne to secure second in the driver’s championship behind Antonio Felix Da Costa who clinched the title two rounds ago. 

Rene Rast kept tabs with the lead fight at the end but could not get close enough to make a pass eventually having another strong result on the final Berlin Tempelhof layout which he scored his debut podium on yesterday. 

Sam Bird had an inspired drive up to fifth from 14th on the grid in his final race for Virgin. He was passing people all through the race with some very aggressive moves akin to the one De Vries made into turn 7. 

Lucas Di Grassi made up a lot of ground too to finish in sixth, again with some sketchy defensive moves which he used in a long fight with Robin Frijns. Frijns kept his nose in and was able to avoid being scared out of the defence by Di Grassi. 

Jean-Eric Vergne secured third in the championship after making up a lot of places as well finishing in seventh ahead of Alex Lynn in the Mahindra. 

New champion Antonio Felix Da Costa stumbled in the midpack but finished in ninth ahead of Edoardo Mortara in 10th. 

Mitch Evans was just outside the points in 11th ahead of Max Gunther and Alex Sims who both were scrapping in the low end of the points. Gunther just missed out a late race incident with Frijns and was knocked down the order. 

Andre Lotterer and Neel Jani were 14th and 15th for Porsche ahead of the retiring Felipe Massa. 

Massa’s departure from the Venturi team was announced just as the race finished brining an end to his two year FE stint.

Tom Blomqvist was 17th for Jaguar and Jerome D’Ambrosio came home 18th. 

Sergio Sette Camara dropped down through the field to 19th ahead of Daniel Abt, Oliver Turvey and Nico Muller. 

Robin Frijns didn’t reach the finish after contact with Di Grassi and Gunther gave him a puncture and steering damage meaning he couldn’t carry on. 

Oliver Rowland had contact and was forced to retire from the race. 

That brings to an end Season 6 of Formula E. Da Costa champion, Vandoorne second and JEV in third. Lots of storylines to round it out; DS Techeetah obviously very strong but Nissan, Mercedes and BMW are all able to fight and the reigning champs should look in their mirrors. 

Season 7 starts in Santiago in 2021 and the stakes are higher than ever, for the first time FE will be a world championship!