New York E-Prix: Da Costa beats Vandoorne in Brooklyn

Da Costa kept Vandoorne at arm’s-length in the latter stages of a frenetic second race at the Brooklyn Street Circuit in Red Hook, where a flurry of late yellow flags reduced the Belgian's opportunity to mount a late pass.

A pile-up at Turn 6 on the antepenultimate lap, which involved Jean-Eric Vergne, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Askew, left the Andretti driver stranded on the corner exit as di Grassi stopped further up the road on the exit of Turn 10, limiting Vandoorne's passing zones to Turn 1.

Despite dwindling energy compared to Vandoorne, da Costa held on to collect his and DS Techeetah's first win of the year, continuing his turnaround after a difficult start to the year.

Da Costa held his pole position off the start despite pressure from fellow front-row starter Alexander Sims, but the Mahindra driver looked more concerned by the cars behind him and thus tried to stick with the Portuguese driver.

The leading duo picked up their sole eight-minute attack mode activations on lap 12, with Vandoorne instructed to do the opposite of Sims, which allowed the Mercedes driver to pick up the lead for a lap.

Vandoorne then picked up attack mode on the following tour, dropping back to third, but he continued to stick with the frontrunners along with teammate Nyck de Vries. But having lost a little ground to da Costa, Sims was then under heavy pressure from Vandoorne, who after a few aborted efforts finally made his way past on the 22nd lap.

That put Vandoorne onto the back of da Costa, but passing opportunities were at a premium as the Season 6 champion was resolute in defence. Although Vandoorne mounted an assault with fanboost on lap 35, da Costa was far enough ahead to see that threat off.

But amid the late skirmish at Turn 6 with the cars on the fringes of the points, Vandoorne's opportunities dwindled and thus da Costa was able to cement victory.

Mitch Evans collected a hard-fought third place, recovering from a shoulder-barge from de Vries and a subsequent huge slide after hitting a bump in the road on the run to Turn 6 – which he miraculously saved.

Those incidents put Evans down into fifth and some way away from the leading quartet, but a series of strong laps from the Kiwi meant that he was able to get back onto de Vries' tail – and the Dutchman then explored the same bump which handed Evans fourth.

As Sims then dropped off the back of da Costa and Vandoorne, he was susceptible to Evans' advances and was dispatched on lap 36 – denying the Mahindra driver a podium.

Sims tailed Evans to the finish but, like Vandoorne, had few opportunities to return the favour but still claimed his best finish of the season.

Jaguar’s Sam Bird collected an excellent fifth from 16th on the grid, scything his way through the field and keeping Robin Frijns at bay in the latter stages.

De Vries hit the bump ahead of Turn 6 for a second time, which put him into the run-off and allowed Bird to pass – and also could not keep Frijns behind him ahead of the final five laps – and thus had to be content with seventh.

Jake Dennis claimed eighth place ahead of Andre Lotterer, who mistimed his start and shed multiple positions from third on the grid, as Edoardo Mortara benefitted from the late-race Turn 6 scuffle to pop up into the points, having worked his way into the points from 21st on the grid.

Pascal Wehrlein beat a bright-starting Dan Ticktum, who was briefly in points contention in the early stages, as both again benefitted from Vergne and di Grassi's conflict.

Race 1 winner Nick Cassidy could not recover from being sent to the back after his penalty for taking a new battery, where he also had to serve a drive through to make up the part of the grid drop he could not serve, but was classified in 16th ahead of Maximilian Gunther – who got a five-second penalty for a clash with Oliver Rowland.

Sergio Sette Camara started fourth, but the limitations of his Dragon Penske package came to the fore and the Brazilian thus fell down the order despite holding his own in the top six in the first part of the race – ultimately finishing 18th.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Points
1	Antonio Felix da Costa	Techeetah	39	46'55.511			28
2	Stoffel Vandoorne	Mercedes	39	46'56.440	0.929	0.929	18
3	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	39	46'59.035	3.524	2.595	15
4	Alexander Sims	Mahindra Racing	39	46'59.142	3.631	0.107	12
5	Sam Bird	Jaguar Racing	39	46'59.923	4.412	0.781	10
6	Robin Frijns	Virgin Racing	39	47'00.490	4.979	0.567	8
7	Nyck de Vries	Mercedes	39	47'01.744	6.233	1.254	6
8	Jake Dennis	Andretti Autosport	39	47'01.827	6.316	0.083	4
9	Andre Lotterer	Porsche Team	39	47'02.101	6.590	0.274	2
10	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi	39	47'08.960	13.449	6.859	2
11	Pascal Wehrlein	Porsche Team	39	47'13.980	18.469	5.020
12	Dan Ticktum	NIO Formula E Team	39	47'18.513	23.002	4.533
13	Sébastien Buemi	DAMS	39	47'25.727	30.216	7.214
14	Oliver Rowland	Mahindra Racing	39	47'28.187	32.676	2.460
15	Oliver Turvey	NIO Formula E Team	39	47'28.766	33.255	0.579
16	Nick Cassidy	Virgin Racing	39	47'35.210	39.699	6.444
17	Maximilian Gunther	DAMS	39	47'41.445	45.934	6.235
18	Sergio Sette Camara	Dragon Racing	39	48'03.704	1'08.193	22.259
	Jean-Eric Vergne	Techeetah	36	43'25.414	3 Laps	3 Laps
	Lucas di Grassi	Venturi	36	43'25.869	3 Laps	0.455
	Oliver Askew	Andretti Autosport	36	43'33.429	3 Laps	7.560
	Antonio Giovinazzi	Dragon Racing	27	32'55.546	12 Laps	9 Laps
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