Jake Dennis wins first E-Prix in London

Jake Dennis celebrated a home victory in Saturday’s Formula E race in London. The British BMW driver beat pole-sitter, Alex Lynn, in commanding fashion to finish ahead of Nyck de Vries, who brought his Mercedes home in second place.

At the start, Lynn was able to maintain his lead. Andre Lotterer made up one position against Sergio Sette Camara and was now fourth. In turn 5, the first clash – Nyck de Vries collided with Alexander Sims and pushed him against the wall. The Mahindra driver had to stop with a damaged car and the full-course yellow was out.

The cars of Mitch Evans and Rene Rast also took minor damage to the front. Evans later dropped to the back of the field. For his part, his Jaguar teammate Sam Bird also had to pit and retire – the reason for the early retirement was not initially apparent. Then both Jean-Eric Vergne (inverter swap) and Maximilian Günther (battery change) completed their 10-second stop-and-go penalties.

After just five minutes, the first drivers took their first of two mandatory attack modes – for the first time with a respective boost duration of eight minutes. Four minutes later, the leaders also drove through the attack zone. Lynn thus remained ahead of Jake Dennis and Sebastien Buemi. Lucas di Grassi prevailed over Sette Camara in a Brazilian duel worth watching over several corners and moved up to 6th place.

Then the Dragon driver was also spun by Norman Nato, for which the Frenchman would later receive a 5-second time penalty. The profiteer was Rene Rast, who was able to overtake both and move up to 7th place. In turn 1, it was very close between Nick Cassidy and Oliver Rowland – and just enough to get off lightly. In the meantime, de Vries had quietly worked his way up to 5th place and was chasing Lotterer.

Then, after 18 minutes, the first lead change: Lynn got his second attack mode, Dennis stayed ‘out’. The BMW driver slipped through on the inside and was now just ahead of his compatriot – the race-deciding phase was about to begin. Despite attack mode, Lynn was unable to get past Dennis in the next few minutes.

In the end, he made a small braking error, allowing Dennis to pull away. After 27 minutes, Dennis finally drove through the attack zone for the last time with a sufficient lead and remained in the top spot. Over the next few minutes, he pulled away by more than five seconds and said he could easily go even faster.

Nothing much happened in London in the final laps. There was an apparently agreed swap of places between the two Audi drivers in positions 6 and 7 – Rast now in front again. Dennis, meanwhile, clinched his second Formula E victory in commanding style. There were no significant changes in position in the places behind him.

The top 10 after the London E-Prix: