Jaguar Brazil Racing driver Sergio Jimenez won round five of the 2018-19 Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy in Rome to take the championship lead after holding off Bryan Sellers in a wet-dry race to become the fifth different winner in the series in five races.
Jimenez had a great start and was comfortably able to hold the lead of the race into the first corner over Bryan Sellers, with Simon Evans and Katherine Legge falling in behind despite Sellers slow start. Jimenez then settled down and built up an early advantages of a second in the early stages of the race.
Further down the field, Qi Lin was out of the race before it had really started, as the Jaguar China Racing driver broke his suspension after hitting the wall on the opening lap.
Ahmed Bin Khanen had a great qualifying for Saudi Racing, and was able to hold off Caca Bueno for much of the race until the rain came with 11-minutes to go when the Saudi driver ran wide into turn 13 along with Yaqi Zhang, which ruined a big opportunity for him to gain some much-needed points on his Saudi Racing team-mate.
After Bin Khanen’s incident, Bueno pulled away from the Am-drivers and with Evans and Legge continuing to battle, the Brazilian soon caught up to the leading pack. But despite his best attempts to pass Stefan Rzadinski in the TWR Techeetah car, he ultimately failed in his attempts to improve to fifth.
So despite the difficult conditions, Sergio Jimenez held on from Bryan Sellers and Simon Evans to record his first race win in the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy and will take the lead of the championship from Sellers and Evans ahead of the next round of the championship in two weeks time on the streets of Paris.
