Sam Bird won an incident-packed Hong Kong Eprix but is under investigation for a last-lap collision with Andre Lotterer.
Running earlier in the day had been wet, including rain between group qualifying and Super Pole sessions but the skies held off for the race, leaving an initially greasy track to steadily develop.Stoffel Vandoorne started from his debut pole position in Formula E but was immediately gazumped for the lead by an incredible getaway by Oliver Rowland. Sam Bird made a similarly brilliant start, moving up five places during his first lap to have passed Vandoorne for second by the time they saw the start/finish line again.
Rowland looked as though he was making some headway on a lead, the drivers behind him preoccupied with Bird’s charge to the front but the race was neutralised before lap 3, when a multi-car pile up between Felipe Nasr’s Dragon and both Mahindra cars first brought out the safety car and then red-flagged the race completely.
The race restarted, with an added 10 minutes of time to make up for stoppage and restart leaving 38 minutes remaining. Vandoorne seemed to have suffered during the red flag and immediately lost another place to Andre Lotterer, who proceeded on to menace second place Sam Bird.
Rowland’s lead ended just a few minutes later, in a bizarre incident where he seemed to accidentally activate the Full Course Yellow constraint setting on his steering wheel by accident, slowing his car on track. Moments later, the newly second-placed Lotterer took advantage by an error from Bird in virtually the same location – the wide curve of turn two – to decisively take the lead.
30 minutes remaining
| Position | Driver | Team | Attack Mode Activations remaining |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andre Lotterer | DS Techeetah | 1 |
| 2 | Sam Bird | Envision Virgin | 1 |
| 3 | Stoffel Vandoorne | HWA AG | 1 |
| 4 | Edoardo Mortara | Venturi | 1 |
| 5 | Gary Paffett | HWA AG | 1 |
| 6 | Lucas di Grassi | Audi | 1 |
| 7 | Sebastien Buemi | Nissan e.Dams | 1 |
| 8 | Robin Frijns | Envision Virgin | 2 |
| 9 | Daniel Abt | Audi | 2 |
| 10 | Oliver Rowland | Nissan e.Dams | 1 |
With 23 minutes remaining, Lotterer and Bird were continuing to battle but with a clear energy advantage for Bird. Lotterer’s remaining usable energy continued to fall behind, until he was 4% below Bird and being radio’d warnings by his engineer.
Fortunately for the DS Techeetah driver, chaos was destined to disrupt the race further with Alexander Sims retiring after colliding with a wall and Sebastien Buemi clashing wheels with Robin Frijns, both bringing out yellow flag areas on the track. Finally for this third of the race, Stoffel Vandoorne retired with a broken drive shaft – a problem teammate Gary Paffett had had earlier in the season.
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15 minutes remaining
| Position | Driver | Team | Attack Mode activations remaining |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andre Lotterer | DS Techeetah | 1 |
| 2 | Sam Bird | Envision Virgin | 1 |
| 3 | Edoardo Mortara | Venturi | 0 |
| 4 | Lucas di Grassi | Audi | 1 |
| 5 | Robin Frijns | Envision Virgin | 1 |
| 6 | Daniel Abt | Audi | 0 |
| 7 | Felipe Massa | Venturi | 1 |
| 8 | Gary Paffett | HWA AG | 1 |
| 9 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar | 1 |
| 10 | Oliver Turvey | NIO | 1 |
With seven minutes to go, an attempt at a recovery drive by Rowland after his earlier mistake took him out of the lead ended with a broken rear axle, stranded on track after hitting a barrier. A safety car had to be deployed while a tractor retrieved the car but at slow enough speed to allow the race to restart, lapping the remaining drivers with space for recovery.
This worked, seeing the safety car in with two minutes to go and Lotterer and Bird’s extremely fierce fight for the lead restarted. Despite a gaining third-placed Edoardo Mortara, the pair continued to duel for the win until the very last lap, after the chequered flag had fallen on 45 minutes.
Having spent much of the race defending from bird, Lotterer finally came undone when contact from the Virgin driver left him with a right-rear puncture. Lotterer limped on for a few corners but soon succumbed to the inevitable, Bird taking the lead and victory ahead of Mortara and Di Grassi. But the new Bird’s move was under investigation made for a somewhat muted ceremony, and a lingering question mark over the race’s outcome.
Race results (provisional):
1. Sam Bird (Virgin)
2. Edoardo Mortara (Venturi)
3. Lucas di Grassi (Audi)
4. Robin Frijns (Virgin)
5. Daniel Abt (Audi)
6. Felipe Massa (Venturi)
7. Mitch Evans (Jaguar)
8. Gary Paffett (HWA AG)
9. Oliver Turvey
10. Antonio Felix da Costa
11. Jose-Maria Lopez
12. Tom Dillman
13. Jean-Eric Vergne
14. Andre Lotterer
DNF Oliver Rowland
DNF Stoffel Vandoorne
DNF Sebastien Buemi
DNF Alexander Sims
DNF Felipe Nasr
DNF Pascal Wehrlein
DNF Jerome D’Ambrosio
DNF Nelson Piquet Jr
Video: 2018-19 Formula E round five: Hong Kong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEVcCWnufCI
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Iosif (@afonic)
10th March 2019, 11:39
The track was awful. What were they thinking, it made the drivers look like amateurs.
Dutchguy (@justarandomdutchguy)
10th March 2019, 11:48
Vandoorne just can’t catch a break, can he
GechiChan (@gechichan)
10th March 2019, 11:54
worst race of the season, made even worst by the ending. Such a great drive by Loterrer only to be taken out in the last lap.
Imre (@f1mre)
10th March 2019, 11:57
Everyone would go mad if we had such a race in Melbourne.
UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
10th March 2019, 12:25
Bird punctured Lotterers right rear, no questions. He knew it himself in the afterrace interview, making excuses about some race last season or whatever.
The track was way, way too narrow in places, but so have some of the others been so it unfortunately seems to be a choice they made to slow speeds down even more in the hairpins, which I can’t understand. Makes the cars look extremely slow and cumbersome going around the tight radius. And the chicanes have one single line through or you hit the wall, why?
TV was focused on just the two leaders. There may have been some action going on but it wasn’t shown live.
Chaitanya
10th March 2019, 12:29
When was the race? seems like I missed this due to MotoGP.
bob (@riptide)
10th March 2019, 13:50
MotoGP races havnt started yet. And this race was 2 hours before the MotoGP warm ups this morning.
Chaitanya
10th March 2019, 14:13
I didnt see the race on schedule on any channels here in India, I thought the race was yesterday maybe during either of practice sessions. Probably the race was dropped in favour of cricket and football matches that are on schedule to be played today.
Bobby (@f1bobby)
10th March 2019, 13:06
Enjoyed that, fun season so far, lots of crashes and controversy.
Silfen (@silfen)
10th March 2019, 13:13
It’s official, Bird got a 5 second penalty, so Mortara wins the race.
ADUB SMALLBLOCK (@waptraveler)
10th March 2019, 15:08
“Gazumped for the lead”? Help me out here guys, is this a British term??
MtlRacer (@mtlracer)
10th March 2019, 16:31
With about 7 minutes left on the clock, there was Murder She Wrote joke made by the announcer… If you’re trying to attract a younger audience, referencing a television show that was popular before that audience was born, and never aimed at a young audience in the first place, probably isn’t the best way to do it.
A
10th March 2019, 16:52
Racecontrol took hours to determine bird was to blame. Same kind of incident with vergne was stop and go penalty during race. Looks like race control is run by A lot of amateurs.
BlackJackFan
11th March 2019, 3:01
I still fail to see the value of this seemingly Mickey Mouse sport. The only part I enjoyed was bird’s punishment, although I would have disqualified him… 5 secs…? Bah, Humbug…!
Badger74 (@badger74)
11th March 2019, 13:47
Does anyone have any spectator or viewership numbers for FormulaE? I’m wondering if I’m the odd one here, but it just leaves me cold. Seems to be going on in a vacuum and is unexciting. None of which seems to bother the sponsors who want to associate with green tech, and the manufacturers who want to develop their electric vehicle technology and market position. Which they can do at a fraction of the cost of F1. The fact is that none of this really relies on many people actually watching or following the races.