Buemi extends Formula E lead with Paris victory

40

Sebastien Buemi has extended his lead in the FIA Formula E championship after taking his fifth win of the season.

The Renault e.dams driver had complete command of the Paris ePrix, leading from lights to flag. By contrast his main title rival, ABT's Lucas di Grassi, suffered a series of costly setbacks during the day.

Buemi had started from pole after pipping Techeetah's Jean-Eric Vergne by 0.006s in qualifying. Buemi, along with Lucas di Grassi and team mate Daniel Abt, were the recipients of this week's Fan Boost.

DS-Virgin's José María López started from third place. Oliver Turvey should have joined him on the second row, but the NEXTEV TCR racer was hit by a ten place grid penalty for a motor change. Esteban Gutierrez was the direct beneficiary, the Techeetah duly starting from fourth.

A solid start for Buemi saw him fend off an attack into turn 1 from local favourite Vergne. The Swiss driver quickly pulled away at the front, while Vergne was able to hold off Lopez to retain second place. Mahindra's Nick Heidfeld made up an early place with a pass on Guttierez to take fourth. The Mexican driver subsequently lost another place to Mahindra's Felix Rosenqvist. He then dug in and thwarted Andretti's Robin Frijns' attempts to force is way past.

A simmering battle over 14th place between Andretti's Antonio Felix da Costa and di Grassi boiled over on lap 16. Di Grassi tried going around the outside into a sharp right hander, leaving da Costa no where to go except into the barrier.

Buemi fends off di Grassi for hard-fought Monaco ePrix win

The collision brought out a full course caution while da Costa's car was recovered. The majority of the field used the opportunity to pit and change to their second car. However, di Grassi's woes were compounded with a drive-thru for failing to adhere to the minimum pit stop time. Jaguar's Adam Carroll was also penalised.

Dragon Racing's Mike Conway briefly assumed the lead until his deferred stop at the end of lap 26 restored Buemi to the front ahead of Vergne, Lopez and Rosenqvist. Unfortunately Vergne was the reason for a safety car to be deployed on lap 34, when the Frenchman suffered steering failure and hit the outside barrier in turn 13. It is the second race in succession that Vergne has ended up in the wall.

Once the race got back underway, Buemi was once again able to comfortably control the race. A final safety car was scrambled three laps before the end when di Grassi ended nose-first in the TechPro barrier. He had locked up while attempting to salvage a point for the fastest lap.

Buemi was joined on the podium by Lopez and Rosenqvist. Buemi's team mate Nicolas Prost took fourth place ahead of Frijns who had a five second penalty for speeding during yellow flags. Nelson Piquet Jr (NextEV NIO) survived an early brush with the wall to claim seventh ahead of Tom Dillmann (Venturi) and Mitch Evans (Jaguar). Dillmann's team mate Stéphane Sarrazin made the top ten after starting from last place on the grid.

Gutierrez was another driver handed a five-second penalty, dropping him to 11th place. Daniel Abt finished in 13th place behind Turvey after suffering a battery system error on the final lap behind the safety car.

Buemi now leads the championship by 43 points over di Grassi after six races. Despite his nightmare day, di Grassi still retains a 31 point lead over Prost, with Heidfeld a further 11 points in arrears. In the team championship, Renault e.dams has a 75 point lead over ABT.
“Want to win a trackday experience? All you have to do is subscribe to our FREE newsletter HERE”

GALLERY: All the action from Barcelona on Sunday

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.