FORMULA E ROME RACE CENTRE18 APRIL 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 33GRIFFITHSGRIFFITHSGRIFFITHSJimenez led
a procession
to the finishJimenez celebrates pole- race victory was a
bit of a formality
director Scot Elkins can now issue (see
page 34) to drivers whose behaviour he
thinks is going too far.
Lotterer waited until lap 20 to take
his own first attack-mode activation,
but could not pay Evans back. When
that boost ran out he immediately took
his second bite of higher power on lap 23,
which was when it all nearly went wrong
for the leader. Evans played the perfect
defensive tactic by heading to the attack
zone on the following tour, but moved out
of it too early and did not get the activation.
But still Lotterer could not make his
advantage pay. Evans eventually took
his final attack activation on lap 27 –
by which time Jaguar had warned him
to slow down to avoid doing an extra lap
and running out of energy as a result –
and that saw him home to a famous win,
with Lotterer satisfied their clash had
been on the right side of acceptable.
“I want to thank everyone at Jaguar
for the hard work,” Evans said. “It’s not
been easy, so I’m really delighted to be
the first winner for Jaguar.”
Vandoorne faded to 6.4 seconds adrift
at the finish, but that was only because he
was trying hard not to take risks on the
kerbs and bumps to avoid suffering another
issue with the driveshaft in his customer
Venturi powertrain. Both HWA drivers had
driveshaft problems across the previous
Rome’s circuit proved tricky for
overtaking in the Jaguar I-PACE
eTrophy, putting the emphasis on
the drivers’ efforts in qualifying.
Jaguar Brazil Racing and Rahal
Letterman Lanigan Racing were
the teams to beat, but only one half
of each line-up was smiling after
qualifying. Sergio Jimenez took pole
for Jaguar Brazil, while team-mate
Caca Bueno suffered a puncture and
qualified seventh. To Jimenez, “the
difficult part” was done.
His RLLR rivals thought those
words would come back to bite him,
with its driver Bryan Sellers on the
grippier side of the track on the front
row, while Sellers’s team-mate Katherine
Legge started fourth after losing free
practice to a puncture. Team Asia
New Zealand’s championship leader
Simon Evans, brother of Rome E-Prix
winner Mitch, qualified third.
Jimenez made a great start but
was quickly pegged back. But nobody
got close enough to pass, and the
drivers were kept on their toes as
rain arrived early on.
“I had the pace [in the dry],” said
Jimenez. “It started to rain a little bit,
and then the next lap a lot, in just one
part of the track. It was very slippery.
“I was the dog in the front that
everybody could follow and find [braking
points]. I changed the brake balance, I
changed the torque map and I was
managing the wiper because some parts
were dry. I needed to do everything.”
Worsening conditions meant driversI-PACE eTROPHY
stuck to the grippier inside line at
the Turn 13 hairpin, leading to a
processional finish. Jimenez won
and took the points lead, with Sellers,
Evans, Legge and Stefan Rzadzinski
finishing in qualifying order behind.
Legge had repeatedly gambled on Turn
13’s outside line to set up a move for T14,
but each time had struggled for grip.
The same corner caught out Pro-Am
class diver Ahmed Bin Khanen, who
had qualified sixth overall and was
comfortable there until fogged-up glasses
meant he missed his braking point and
skated down the escape road. Yaqi Zhang
did the same, but then made the race’s
only overtake to beat Celia Martin to
second in Pro-Am, behind class
dominator Bandar Alesayi.
“It underlines the importance of
qualifying, because if there’s no passing
it makes it more about qualifying than
racing,” was Legge’s summary of events.
ELLIOT WOOD