Sabastien Buemi stormed through from fifth place on the grid to take victory in round three of the Formula E season in Punta del Este, Uruguay.
Buemi was joined on the podium by ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport’s Lucas Di Grassi and pole-sitter Jerome D’Ambrosio.
Loic Duval finished in a strong fourth position with Nicolas Prost and Antonio Felix Da Costa rounding out the top six in South America.
D’Ambrosio made a great start to the race from pole and pulled out a good early lead ahead of Sam Bird who had got the better of Duval from third-place on the grid.
Buemi also managed to make up one place as the lights went out as he overtook Grassi for fourth position.
There was a problem early on for Bruno Senna as he became the first driver in the series’ history to come in for a tyre change after suffering from a puncture on lap three.
Back at the front Buemi started to make progress as he went down the inside of Duval for third place on lap four before setting his sights on Bird in the DS Virgin Racing car.
Despite putting up a strong fight Bird couldn’t hold Buemi off for long and lost-out to the Swiss driver a couple of laps later.
Buemi’s pace was clear to see and within a few seconds he was already all the back of D’Ambrosio for the lead of the race. He took advantage of his clear speed advantage and took the lead at turn 17 on lap eight.
Behind the leading pair, Di Grassi was also beginning to make some progress and soon joined a three-man battle for third position with Duval and Bird.
Di Grassi went down the inside of Bird at the final turn on lap 10 but soon found himself stuck behind Duval for a few laps as he was unable to find a way past the Dragon Racing driver.
Di Grassi remained behind Duval as the pair entered the pits to switch to their second cars – with the pair almost coming together as they slammed their brakes on to meet the pit lane speed limit.
The winner of the Puturajaya ePrix was rewarded for his patience in the pits however with the Dragon Racing duo of D’Ambrosio and Duval both suffering from slow pit-stops which allowed him to leap up into second position.
Bird was forced into retirement moments after the pit-stops, with his car coming to stop on the start/finish straight – causing the race to go into full course yellow conditions.
Buemi slowed down before the conditions came into affect – allowing Di Grassi to close him down for the re-start – but it didn’t take long for Buemi to extend his lead once again and he would finish the race without any challenge from Di Grassi.
The race settled down after the re-start with Nelson Piquet JR and Jean-Eric Vergne providing the main but of action on the circuit in the closing stages.
The pair took their battle for eighth onto the final lap of the race and clashed with each other as Vergne tried to make a move on the Brazilian. Moments later Piquet JR found himself in the wall after losing control of his NextEV TCR car.
Buemi’s win takes him to the top of the championship with 62 points – just one point ahead of Di Grassi.
