Nick Cassidy took a controlled win for Jaguar in the second Formula E race of the weekend on the Diriyah street circuit in Saudi Arabia.
Having finished third in yesterday’s race, Cassidy qualified in the same position for the second encounter. It was held over 36 laps, one less than the previous encounter.
A red flag during qualifying created an unexpected grid. Race one winner Jake Dennis lined up 14th, the same place race two pole winner Oliver Rowland started from 14 hours earlier. Sebastien Buemi failed to start having damaged his chassis.
Rowland shared the front row of the grid with Robin Frijns. But when the lights went out the Envision driver made a slightly better getaway, despite the disadvantage of starting off-line, and pitched his car down the inside of Rowland’s.
While Frijns captured the lead from Rowland, Cassidy took a brief look at the outside but thought better of it. Behind them Stoffel Vandoorne held his fourth place while Jake Hughes moved up to fifth at the expense of Jehan Daruvala.
Within a few laps the leaders were starting to peel off the racing line through the turn 18-19 chicane to trigger Attack Mode. Rowland did so first, followed by leader Frijns, promoting Cassidy into the lead.
Cassidy played a patient game, edging out enough of a lead over his pursuers before taking Attack Mode himself. This paid off beautifully: While Rowland dropped six seconds behind Frijns in his Nissan, Cassidy pulled out two seconds on his pursuer by lap 13. That was enough for him to take his final Attack Mode activation, which he did, keeping the lead over Frijns.
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The leading pair had been too greedy with their consumption, however, and had to pay the piper over the laps that followed. As they backed off, Rowland took half a second per lap out of them, and Dennis down in 13th was up to 1.8s quicker at times.
By lap 22 Cassidy, Frijns and Rowland were covered by less than a second. But Frijns never had a clear shot at the race leader, and instead became increasingly preoccupied by the threat posed by Rowland behind him.
Cassidy held firm at the front as the final laps ticked down, and he took the chequered flag with just over a second in hand over Frijns, and Rowland seven-tenths of a second further back in third.
Hughes claimed fourth for McLaren ahead of Vandoorne and Fenestraz. Pascal Wehrlein worked his way up to seventh place, passing Jean-Eric Vergne and Sam Bird on the way. The latter lost…
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