Jean-Eric Vergne took another step towards winning his first Formula E championship with victory in the Paris ePrix.
The Parisian won his home race after leading every lap from pole in what was a dominating win, meaning he now has a thirty-one point lead over Sam Bird.
Bird had pressurised Vergne in the first phase of the race, with both of them pulling away from the rest of the pack along with Vergne’s Techeetah team-mate Andre Lotterer.
After a tight pit stop battle the three emerged in the same order but Bird lacked pace in the second half of the race and dropped back from Vergne before being overtaken by Lotterer.
Bird soon after lost a place to Lucas di Grassi as well, but grabbed an unlikely podium after there was drama on the last lap.
Lotterer had defended robustly to keep di Grassi’s Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler behind him, but ran out of energy on his last lap meaning that he had to cruise to the finish line.
The sudden drop in speed caught Bird by surprise, and the two collided with the DS Virgin Racing driver managing to get past Lotterer but with only three wheels.
Lotterer too managed to cross the line despite not having a rear wing, but dropped down to sixth after allowing Maro Engel and Sebastien Buemi to pass.
Daniel Abt finished behind in seventh after also slowing on the final lap, ruining what would have been a stellar race after he battled bravely through the field.
The German managed to pull off a string of impressive overtakes, including on Felix Rosenqvist and Buemi, only to have his hard work thwarted at the end.
Rosenqvist too had a disappointing race, struggling after a poor qualifying and failing to make the progress in the race we’ve come to expect from the Swede.
His eighth place finish keeps him in the title hunt, but he is now without a podium finish since his win in Marrakesh and looking increasingly unlikely to mount a challenge.
Oliver Turvey finished in ninth after the NIO driver was forced to spend most of the race defending, with Jose Maria Lopez salvaging a point in tenth after he too had to hold off Nick Heidfeld in the closing laps.
Towards the back it was a terrible race for MS&AD Andretti, who suffered two retirements and wasted the opportunity to capitalise on Antonio Felix da Costa’s strong qualifying performance.
The Portuguese driver was running in the top five but was forced to retire his car early on, and team-mate Tom Blomqvist collided into the back of Nico Prost on the opening lap leading to a front and rear wing change that effectively eliminated him from the race.
