Formula E Diriyah, race 1: Dennis dominates, sparks for the podium | FP

The first of the two Diriyah E-Prix returns to ignite the spirits of Formula E fans, after the monotonous opening race in Mexico City. The man of the day is the world champion Jake Dennis, first at the finish line with a 13 second margin over the first of his pursuers. However, the Briton's race was anything but easy, with the Andretti standard-bearer emerging victorious from the initial three-way battle with Jean-Eric Vergne and Mitch Evans.

The race

At the start the top positions remained unchanged, with Vergne leading the group into Turn 1, followed by Evans, Dennis and Sette Camara. Bird made an excellent start on McLaren, from ninth to sixth, while championship leader Wehrlein fell from sixth to ninth position. The leading trio immediately pulled away in the first laps, with Vergne activating the first Attack Mode on the second lap, managing to defend the position on Evans who armed his power bonus on the following lap, pressing him against the wall. It is Dennis who takes advantage of this and, at the moment of his activation, returns to the trajectory in second position, overtaking the New Zealander from Jaguar.

It's not long before the leading trio complete their second lap of activations, during which Dennis takes the lead thanks to an impressive fast lap, ahead of Evans and Vergne. Shortly afterwards the Jaguar standard-bearer overtook the DS Frenchman on the track, then moving close to Andretti in first position. However, at the time of the attack on Dennis, Evans overshoots and drops to third behind Vergne.

At that point Jake Dennis is free to manage the pace, also thanks to an advantage in energy, opening a gap on his pursuers which protects him from any comebacks. In fact, after the initial battles with fast laps, the leading trio found themselves with less energy than the little train behind them, led by Sette Camara. The pursuers activate their Attack Modes no earlier than the second half of the race, the last of which is Nick Cassidy, who thanks to late activations and teamwork with Mitch Evans, jumps from seventh to fourth position, ahead of Bird's McLaren.

The final laps are characterized by a four-way fight between Vergne, Evans, Cassidy and Bird for the second step of the podium. On the last lap Evans launches a lunge on the DS, but ends up wide again, dropping back to fifth place. Thus Jake Dennis wins, with a 13 second margin over Vergne, author of an excellent defense in the final despite his energy inferiority. Nick Cassidy completes the podium, ahead of Bird and Evans. The winner of Mexico City, Pascal Wehrlein, is eighth at the finish line, but defends the championship lead with 32 points. However, the ranking appears particularly compact, with Cassidy, Vergne and Dennis on 31, 29 and 28 points respectively.

Order of arrival