2019 Marrakesh ePrix

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Date 12 January 2019 (2019-01-12)
Official name 2019 Marrakesh E-Prix
Course Street Circuit
2019 Marrakesh ePrix
Race 2 of 13 of the 2018–19 Formula E Championship
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Race details[1][2]
Date 12 January 2019 (2019-01-12)
Official name 2019 Marrakesh E-Prix
Location Circuit International Automobile Moulay El Hassan, Agdal, Marrakesh
Course Street Circuit
Course length 2.971 kilometres (1.846 mi)
Distance 31 laps, 92.101 km (57.229 mi)
Weather Sunny
Pole position
Driver Envision Virgin Racing
Time 1:17.851
Fastest lap
Driver Brazil Lucas di Grassi Audi
Time 1:20.296 on lap 31
Podium
First Mahindra Racing
Second Envision Virgin Racing
Third Envision Virgin Racing
Lap leaders

The 2019 Marrakesh ePrix (formally the 2019 Marrakesh E-Prix) was a Formula E electric car race held at the Circuit International Automobile Moulay El Hassan in the Agdal district of Marrakesh, Morocco on 12 January 2019. It was the second round of the 2018–19 Formula E Championship and the third Marrakesh ePrix. Jérôme d'Ambrosio of Mahindra won the 31-lap race after starting from tenth place. Second place went to Virgin's Robin Frijns and his teammate Sam Bird was third.

Bird won the pole position by setting the fastest lap in qualifying and held the lead despite Techeetah's Jean-Éric Vergne clattering into his left-hand sidepod and spinning 180 degrees on the race's opening lap. António Félix da Costa of BMW Andretti passed Bird to move into first place on lap ten and pulled away to lead the following fourteen laps until a collision on lap 26 with his teammate Alexander Sims careened him into a barrier. That promoted d'Ambrosio into the lead, which he maintained through a safety car period; he held off Frijns on the final lap to win by 0.143 seconds. It was d'Ambrosio's third career victory and his first without having inherited the win through driver disqualifications.

D'Ambrosio's victory put him in the lead of the Drivers' Championship with 40 points. Félix da Costa fell to second and Vergne, who recovered to finish fifth in the race, dropped to third. Vergne's teammate André Lotterer moved up a place to fourth and Frijns moved from twelfth to fifth. In the Teams' Championship, Techeetah led with 47 points, Mahindra and BMW were tied for second as Virgin progressed to fourth with eleven races left in the season.

The Marrakesh ePrix was confirmed as part of the 2018–19 Formula E Championship by the FIA World Motor Sport Council in October 2018.[3] It was the second of thirteen scheduled single-seater electric car races of the 2018–19 Championship,[3] and third annual edition of the event.[4][5] The ePrix was held at the 2.97 km (1.85 mi) anti-clockwise 12-turn semi-permanent Circuit International Automobile Moulay El Hassan street circuit in the Agdal district of the Moroccan city of Marrakesh on 12 January.[5][6][7] The track's configuration requires teams to develop their spring rates, anti-roll bar, car ride height and vehicle chassis configuration for maximum mechanical grip.[8] The circuit was unchanged from the 2018 race with the mandatory attack-mode activation zone to provide drivers with extra power for a certain amount of time situated on the outside of turn three and the timing loops to activate the system were made visible to drivers.[9] The driver adviser to the stewards was former Trulli GP driver Vitantonio Liuzzi.[10]

Pascal Wehrlein (pictured in 2011) made his Formula E debut for Mahindra.

After winning the season-opening Ad Diriyah ePrix four weeks earlier, BMW Andretti driver António Félix da Costa led the Drivers' Championship with 28 points, ahead of Jean-Éric Vergne of Techeetah with 18 points, and Mahindra's Jérôme d'Ambrosio with 15 points. With 12 points, Mitch Evans for Jaguar was in fourth place and Vergne's teammate André Lotterer was fifth with 10 points.[11] In the Teams' Championship, Techeetah led with 29 points; BMW Andretti were a further point behind in second. Mahindra, Jaguar and e.Dams-Nissan in positions three through five were each separated by a single point.[11] The race saw the introduction of a mandated winglet on the roll hoop of all cars, next to the television camera. The addition came after some teams lobbied the series to free up space on the hoop's side for commercial partners.[12]

Following a software-related drive-through penalty that lost him a potential victory in Ad Diriyah, Vergne said he was eager to demonstrate his team had the fastest car in Marrakesh, "Being so close to the victory in the first round has left me very hungry for more, and it’s what my focus is all about right now, Marrakesh hasn’t been a good track for us in the past so I’m hoping that we can change that and leave Morocco on a high note this year. It still [sic] a very long way to go and we know that we need to continue to be razor sharp for the rest of the season."[13] D'Ambrosio stated that he thought he could achieve another podium finish in Marrakesh, and aimed to continue improving his performance and maintain Mahindra's strong record at the track: "It’s a challenging street circuit and, while it hasn’t been the best track for me over the past two years, I’m going to make sure that I change that and I’m looking forward to having a good race this weekend."[14]

The second in-season rookie test was scheduled to be held at the circuit the day after the race. Teams were required to field two drivers who were not in possession of an e-licence at the time of the test.[7] There were eleven teams entering two drivers each for the race with a total of 22 competitors.[15] There was one driver change going into the race. Having missed the Ad Diriyah ePrix because his Mercedes-Benz contract barred him from driving with another team until 31 December 2018 without performing certain pre-requisites,[16] 2015 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters champion Pascal Wehrlein replaced the outgoing Felix Rosenqvist at Mahindra; Rosenqvist moved to Chip Ganassi Racing's IndyCar Series team for 2019.[17] Wehrlein spent the week before the race at Mahindra's simulator in Banbury as part of his preparation.[18]

Practice

Two practice sessions—both on Saturday morning—were held before the late-afternoon race. The first session ran for 45 minutes and the second for half an hour.[19] The first practice session was first held in darkness and cold weather with drivers struggling to get tyre temperature before the sun rose.[20][21] Robin Frijns of Virgin was fastest with a lap of 1 minute and 17.808 seconds, followed by Félix da Costa, Bird, e.Dams-Nissan's Oliver Rowland, Oliver Turvey for NIO, the Jaguar duo of Evans and Nelson Piquet Jr., Alexander Sims of BMW Andretti, Sebastien Buemi for Nissan and Vergne.[20] During the session, where drivers locked their tyres due to them fine-tuning their brake-by-wire systems,[22] several competitors ran onto the turn seven run-off area because they braked later than usual. Evans avoided contact with a trackside barrier, and his teammate Piquet swerved to avoid hitting Venturi's Felipe Massa who made a late decision to enter the pit lane. With 13 minutes remaining, Wehrlein's car briefly switched off at turn ten and the session was red flagged as he reset his car to allow his return to the pit lane.[21][22]

The second practice session was held in warmer weather. Evans led with an early benchmark lap which Frijns improved in the final ten minutes. Lotterer then bettered Frijns' lap before Evans ran with 250 kW (340 hp) of power to set a 1-minute and 17.762 seconds lap to go fastest, 0.242 seconds ahead of Lotterer.[23] Buemi, Félix da Costa, Frijns, Rowland, José María López for Dragon, Turvey, Vergne, and Sims completed the top ten ahead of qualifying.[24] As the session passed relatively peacefully,[25] drivers again locked their brakes into turn seven.[24] As Massa activated 250 kW (340 hp) mode, his car shut down on the start/finish straight;[23][24] he restarted it with radio engineer assistance.[26] Massa's powertrain was later replaced and Lucas di Grassi's Audi had a water pump change.[27]

Qualifying

Saturday's 75-minute afternoon qualifying session was divided into two groups of five cars and two groups of six. Each group was determined by a lottery system and given six minutes of on-track activity. All drivers were limited to two timed laps with one at maximum power. The fastest six overall competitors in the four groups participated in a "Super Pole" session with one driver on the track at any time going out in reverse order from fifth to first. Each of the five drivers was limited to one timed lap and the starting order was determined by their fastest times; positions six through twenty were determined by group qualifying times. The driver and team who recorded the fastest time were awarded three points towards their respective championships.[19]

Sam Bird (pictured in 2015) took the fifth pole position of his career notwithstanding rear diffuser damage from a three-car accident in the pit lane.

In the first session to have a direct comparison between the two cars—the preceding Ad Diriyah race was rain-affected—the SRT05e was three seconds a lap faster than the Spark-Renault SRT 01E.[28][29] In group one, Félix da Costa was fastest, ahead of Vergne, Evans, d'Ambrosio and Lotterer after a driver error at turn seven.[30][31] Buemi led the second session with Piquet second.[31] Di Grassi had an untidy lap and was third in the group, followed by Rowland.[32][33] Abt was group two's slowest driver by losing a large amount of time midway on the track.[31] In the third group, Bird set the fastest overall kap in group qualifying at 1 minute and 17.851 seconds despite a minor error in the first turn.[30][1] His teammate Frijns was second and provisionally sixth overall.[33] The NIO pair of Turvey and Dillmann were third and fourth.[1] Dragon's Maximilian Günther was fifth after hitting a bump on a kerb on the exit to turn six, going airborne briefly, and crashing into the side of a barrier.[30][31] Stoffel Vandoorne's HWA car shut down halfway through his maximum power lap as he looked set to enter the top ten.[30][34]

After group three ended, Dillmann's car had a sudden brake failure en route to parc fermé in the pit lane and he had to decide whether to hit the rear of Frijns' car or a track marshal.[31] He elected to hit Frijns, which caused a chain reaction incident that sent him into the rear of his teammate Bird's car. Bird sustained rear diffuser damage; parc fermé regulations dictated any repairs made to his car would send him to the rear of the grid.[30] In group four, Sims was fastest and he advanced to Super Pole. He demoted Wehrlein to seventh overall after the latter ran over the kerbs at the final corner.[28][34] López was third; the Venturi duo of Massa and Edoardo Mortara took fourth and fifth.[1] HWA's Gary Paffett was slowest in group four because of a heavy understeer in turn one and electrical energy issues.[30][32] After group qualifying, Buemi, Sims, Félix da Costa, Vergne and Evans progressed to Super Pole.[33] Bird took the fifth pole position of his career and his first since the second 2017 New York City ePrix race with a 1-minute and 17.489 seconds lap.[28] He was joined on the grid's front row by Vergne who recorded a mistake-free lap.[33] Félix da Costa had an untidy lap and came third. Buemi in fourth was smooth and Sims took fifth.[30] Sixth-place Evans locked his front tyres on the approach to turn seven and ran deep onto the run off-area.[31][35]

Post-qualifying

After qualifying, Félix da Costa was demoted three places on the starting grid because he was adjudged to have exceeded the maximum amount of permitted electrical power on his non-timed lap at 204.92 kW (274.80 hp) because of a temporary spike.[36] Hence, the grid lined up after penalties as Bird, Vergne, Buemi, Sims, Evans, Félix da Costa, Wehrlein, Frijns, Piquet, d'Ambrosio, di Grassi, Rowland, López, Turvey, Massa, Abt, Mortara, Dillmann, Paffett, Lotterer, Günther and Vandoorne.[1]

Qualifying classification

Final qualifying classification
Pos. No. Driver Team GS SP Grid
1 2 United Kingdom Sam Bird Virgin-Audi 1:17.851 1:17.489 1
2 25 France Jean-Éric Vergne Techeetah-DS 1:18.042 1:17.535 2
3 28 Portugal António Félix da Costa Andretti-BMW 1:17.950 1:17.626 61
4 23 Switzerland Sébastien Buemi e.Dams-Nissan 1:17.906 1:17.738 3
5 27 United Kingdom Alexander Sims Andretti-BMW 1:17.935 1:18.400 4
6 20 New Zealand Mitch Evans Jaguar 1:18.106 1:29.379 5
7 94 Germany Pascal Wehrlein Mahindra 1:18.126 7
8 4 Netherlands Robin Frijns Virgin-Audi 1:18.200 8
9 3 Brazil Nelson Piquet Jr. Jaguar 1:18.347 9
10 64 Belgium Jérôme d'Ambrosio Mahindra 1:18.440 10
11 11 Brazil Lucas di Grassi Audi 1:18.595 11
12 22 United Kingdom Oliver Rowland e.Dams-Nissan 1:18.604 12
13 7 Argentina José María López Dragon-Penske 1:18.612 13
14 16 United Kingdom Oliver Turvey NIO 1:18.624 14
15 19 Brazil Felipe Massa Venturi 1:18.780 15
16 66 Germany Daniel Abt Audi 1:18.921 16
17 48 Switzerland Edoardo Mortara Venturi 1:19.133 17
18 8 France Tom Dillmann NIO 1:19.338 18
19 17 United Kingdom Gary Paffett HWA-Venturi 1:19.516 19
20 36 Germany André Lotterer Techeetah-DS 1:19.633 20
21 6 Germany Maximilian Günther Dragon-Penske 1:23.332 21
22 5 Belgium Stoffel Vandoorne HWA-Venturi 1:33.404 22
Source:[1]
Notes
  • ^1  António Félix da Costa was demoted three places for exceeding the amount of permitted power on his non-timed lap.[36]

Race

Standings after the race

References

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