Race report

Formula E Rome ePrix

Rome ePrix: Bird resists di Grassi in thrilling finish

Sam Bird scored his second victory of the 2017/18 Formula E season after resisting a spirited late charge by reigning champion Lucas di Grassi in the closing stages of an eventful inaugural Rome ePrix.

Alex Kalinauckas

Edited: Apr 14, 2018, 8:57 PM

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Sam Bird, DS Virgin Racing

Poleman Felix Rosenqvist had been in control of the race from the outset, and held a narrow lead over Bird when he stopped on track on lap 22 of 33 after clouting the kerbs at the Turn 18/19 chicane and breaking his rear-left suspension.

That left Bird with a three-second advantage over Mitch Evans, but the Jaguar driver closed up to the race leader within a matter of laps, with Audi's di Grassi following the Kiwi to make it a three-way dice for honours in the closing laps.

Evans made a brave attempt to dive up the inside of Bird at Turn 9 with four laps to go, but the Briton managed to hang on and was able to stretch out a small advantage in the closing laps as Evans turned his attentions to defending from di Grassi and Andre Lotterer.

Two laps later, di Grassi picked off Evans for second at Turn 9, but ran out time to catch Bird, who hung on for a first race win since the Hong Kong season opener by a margin of 0.970s.

Di Grassi finished the race facing an investigation for his car swap procedure, but was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

Video explainer: Mahindra powertrain...

Evans plummeted from third to ninth as he ran out of useable energy on the last lap, promoting Techeetah driver Lotterer to the final spot on the podium.

Daniel Abt was fourth in the second Audi, while Jean-Eric Vergne (Techeetah) limited the damage to his points lead in fifth place ahead of Sebastien Buemi (Renault e.dams).

Jerome d’Ambrosio (Dragon) rose from 18th on the grid to take seventh, ahead of Maro Engel (Venturi), with Edoardo Mortara (Venturi) rounding out the top 10 behind Evans.

Alex Lynn, who damaged his front wing on the opening lap after hitting Vergne, became the race's first retirement when he hit the wall at half-distance.

Nelson Piquet Jr (Jaguar) came to a stop in the pitlane after changing cars, while Jose Maria Lopez (Dragon) ground to a halt out on track late on having caused an earlier pile-up involving Nick Heidfeld's Mahindra and the two NIO cars of Luca Filippi and Oliver Turvey.

Bird moves ahead of Rosenqvist into second in the championship with his win, 18 points behind Vergne.

Race results:

Pos.DriverTeamGap 1 united_kingdom Sam Bird Virgin Racing 33 laps 2 brazil Lucas di Grassi germany Team Abt 0.970 3 germany Andre Lotterer china Techeetah 9.518 4 germany Daniel Abt germany Team Abt 10.167 5 france Jean-Eric Vergne china Techeetah 17.444 6 switzerland Sébastien Buemi france DAMS 19.835 7 belgium Jérôme d'Ambrosio united_states Dragon Racing 24.379 8 germany Maro Engel monaco Venturi 26.350 9 new_zealand Mitch Evans united_kingdom Jaguar Racing 37.709 10 italy Edoardo Mortara monaco Venturi 40.739 11 portugal Antonio Felix da Costa Andretti Autosport 42.680 12 Oliver Turvey china NIO Formula E Team 48.833 13 italy Luca Filippi china NIO Formula E Team 49.331 14 france Nicolas Prost france DAMS 1'13.880 15 united_kingdom Tom Blomqvist united_states Andretti Autosport 1'31.832 16 germany Nick Heidfeld india Mahindra Racing 1'44.774 Ret argentina Jose Maria Lopez Dragon Racing - Ret sweden Felix Rosenqvist india Mahindra Racing - Ret brazil Nelson Piquet Jr. Jaguar Racing - Ret united_kingdom Alex Lynn Virgin Racing -

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