Nyck de Vries started his defence of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship perfectly as he led a Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team one-two in the opening race of the Diriyah E-Prix on Friday.
The Dutchman capitalised on a mistake in activating the attack mode by his Belgian team-mate to take over at the front, and once there he made no mistakes himself and finished six-tenths of a second clear at the end of a race that went into overtime due to an early safety car.
De Vries went into the day on the backfoot after crashing early in Thursday’s free practice, but he jumped into second place ahead of Avalanche Andretti Formula E Team’s Jake Dennis at the start and then was in the right place when Vandoorne missed one of the activation points when attempting to take his second attack mode just after half distance.
The safety car was needed early on when Oliver Rowland was pitched into the wall by Robin Frijns, with the Mahindra Racing driver out on the spot. The stewards did not take too kindly to the Envision Racing driver’s move and handed him a drive-through penalty for the incident.
The safety car for Rowland’s crash saw the first ever overtime being added to the race distance, with five minutes and fifteen seconds being added to the overall time, meaning drivers had to be extremely clever with their energy usage to make it to the line.
Dennis completed the podium after fighting his way ahead of Tag Heuer Porsche FE Team’s André Lotterer, who had edged ahead of the Briton during the second round of attack modes. However, Lotterer’s race soon unravelled as he struggled with energy usage, and ultimately did not have the pace needed to hold on to even points, let alone a podium.
Sam Bird scored good points for the Jaguar TCS Racing team as he climbed to fourth, just ahead of Lucas di Grassi, who ended fifth on his first race with the ROKiT Venturi Racing team. To cap a good day for Venturi, Edoardo Mortara passed Envision Racing’s Nick Cassidy on the final lap to claim sixth as the New Zealander was forced to slow to ensure he had the energy to make it to the chequered flag.
After a poor qualifying performance earlier in the day, Jean-Éric Vergne was able to move forward in the race and claim eighth for DS Techeetah, while another standout performance was debutant Oliver Askew, who moved up eight places from seventeenth on the grid to take two points for ninth for Andretti. The American made a last lap move on Jaguar’s Mitch Evans, who was forced to settle for the final point in tenth.
Lotterer ultimately ended the day thirteenth having slid down the order, with his early energy usage coming back to haunt him. He was passed in the closing laps by Askew, team-mate Pascal Wehrlein and Nissan e.dams’ Maximilian Günther.
The other two rookies in the field – NIO 333 FE Team’s Dan Ticktum and Dragon/Penske Autosport’s Antonio Giovinazzi – struggled, with the Briton ending eighteenth and the Italian twentieth and last of the classified finishes.
Aside from Rowland, the only other retirement was in the form of former series champion António Félix da Costa, with the Portuguese driver calling it a day at the end of the first lap with a broken suspension on his DS Techeetah.
Diriyah E-Prix Race 1 Result
| POS. | NO. | DRIVER | NAT | TEAM | TIME |
| 1 | 17 | Nyck de Vries | NED | Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team | 52:14.642 |
| 2 | 5 | Stoffel Vandoorne | BEL | Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team | +0.636 |
| 3 | 27 | Jake Dennis | GBR | Avalanche Andretti FE Team | +8.802 |
| 4 | 10 | Sam Bird | GBR | Jaguar TCS Racing | +14.925 |
| 5 | 11 | Lucas di Grassi | BRZ | ROKiT Venturi Racing | +15.152 |
| 6 | 48 | Edoardo Mortara | CHE | ROKIT Venturi Racing | +16.015 |
| 7 | 37 | Nick Cassidy | NZL | Envision Racing | +17.265 |
| 8 | 25 | Jean-Éric Vergne | FRA | DS Techeetah | +25.076 |
| 9 | 28 | Oliver Askew | USA | Avalanche Andretti FE Team | +25.699 |
| 10 | 9 | Mitch Evans | NZL | Jaguar TCS Racing | +27.320 |
| 11 | 99 | Pascal Wehrlein | GER | TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team | +28.781 |
| 12 | 28 | Maximilian Günther | GER | Nissan e.DAMS | +30.536 |
| 13 | 36 | André Lotterer | GER | TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team | +31.521 |
| 14 | 29 | Alexander Sims | GBR | Mahindra Racing | +34.572 |
| 15 | 7 | Sérgio Sette Câmara | BRZ | Dragon/Penske Autosport | +36.781 |
| 16 | 4 | Robin Frijns | NED | Envision Racing | +39.953 |
| 17 | 23 | Sébastien Buemi | CHE | Nissan e.DAMS | +41.334 |
| 18 | 33 | Dan Ticktum | GBR | NIO 333 FE Team | +49.222 |
| 19 | 8 | Oliver Turvey | GBR | NIO 333 FE Team | +50.965 |
| 20 | 99 | Antonio Giovinazzi | ITA | Dragon/Penske Autosport | +1:16.527 |
| RET | 30 | Oliver Rowland | GBR | Mahindra Racing | Retired |
| RET | 13 | António Félix da Costa | POR | DS Techeetah | Retired |
