Vandoorne and Mercedes champions as Mortara wins season finale in Seoul

Formula E

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Stoffel Vandoorne was crowned Formula E world champion in the final race of the 2022 season as Edoardo Mortara won the season finale in Seoul.

Vandoorne took second place, five spots ahead of championship rival Mitch Evans to win his first Formula E drivers’ title, while Mercedes EQ secured the teams’ title for the second consecutive season.

The race was won by Edoardo Mortara, with Jake Dennis finishing second on the road but falling behind Vandoorne to third after serving a five second time penalty.

Before the race began, championship leader Vandoorne held the advantage on the starting grid as he had reached the duels in qualifying to line up fourth, while Evans could only manage 13th on the grid. Pole was taken by Antonio Felix da Costa, with Edoardo Mortara alongside him on the front row.

Da Costa led from pole but was passed by Mortara
When the lights went out, Da Costa jumped out into the lead with Mortara holding off an attack from Jake Dennis for second. There was heavy contact on the opening lap with Maximilian Gunther clashing with Lucas di Grassi who then hit Dan Ticktum, causing a the field behind to briefly compact together.

On the start of the third lap, Mortara launched up the inside of Da Costa at turn 22and forced his way through into the lead. Dennis took advantage of Da Costa’s line being compromised to demote the Techeetah down a second position to third.

Da Costa in third, Vandoorne in fourth and Robin Frijns in fifth all took their first Attack Mode together, with Dennis in second place following on the next lap. Further back in the pack, Nyck de Vries and Pascal Werhlein collided while battling at turn one, sending Werhlein out and forcing De Vries to pit with damage, where he would also retire. De Vries would later be deemed responsible by the stewards

Leader Mortara took his first attack mode with 32 minutes remaining. After the top five drivers had all seen their first Attack Mode expire, all five remained in order. However, Vandoorne began to put Da Costa under pressure for third place.

Di Grassi pulled into the pits with an apparent puncture, dropping him down to 14th place and all but assuring the teams championship for Mercedes EQ. Then, Gunther pulled his Nissan off to the side of the road after breaking his suspension hitting the wall in the final sector. The Safety Car was deployed to allow Gunther’s car to be recovered.

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When the race resumed, Mortara led away from Dennis, Da Costa and Vandoorne. Mortara immediate took his second Attack Mode, as did Da Costa in third. With the extra power, Da Costa was instantly able to challenge Dennis for second place, looking to the outside on the approach to turn 22. Da Costa appeared to through, but Dennis tagged the rear of the Techeetah at the apex, sending him skidding into the barrier and dropping Da Costa all the way to the back of the field.

The incident was investigated and Dennis was eventually handed a five second time penalty. The clash promoted Vandoorne up to third position, while Mortara continued to lead out front. Eventually standard race time expired, with over six minutes of added time applied. However, the leaders were too spread out for any battles for position to take place.

Vandoorne secured his first Formula E title with second
Mortara cruised over the final laps to take the chequered flag, a couple of seconds ahead of Dennis. Vandoorne was another second behind to secure the world championship, but inherited second place from Dennis after his penalty was applied.

Frijns was too far back in fourth to deny Dennis the final podium position, with Oliver Askew ending his season with a fifth place finish. Jean-Eric Vergne finished sixth, ahead of Evans who progressed up to seventh by the end of the race. Nick Cassidy and Sebastien Buemi claimed eighth and ninth, while Da Costa recovered from his clash with Dennis to take the final point in tenth.

Mercedes EQ also claimed the teams championship for the second consecutive year in their final race in the series. Mercedes EQ will transition into McLaren Electric Racing for next season.

2022 Seoul EPrix 2 race results:

PositionDriverTeam
1Edoardo MortaraVenturi
2Stoffel VandoorneMercedes
3Jake DennisAndretti
4Robin FrijnsEnvision
5Oliver AskewAndretti
6Mitch EvansJaguar
6Jean-Eric VergneDS Techeetah
8Nick CassidyEnvision
9Sebastien BuemiNissan EDAMS
10Antonio Felix da CostaDS Techeetah
11Lucas di GrassiVenturi
12Alexander SimsMahindra
13Sergio Sette CamaraDragon Penske
14Norman NatoJaguar
15Oliver TurveyNio
16Sacha FenestrazDragon Penske
RetMax GuntherNissan EDAMS
RetNyck de VriesMercedes
RetPascal WehrleinPorsche
RetDan TicktumNio
RetOliver RowlandMahindra
RetAndre LottererPorsche

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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17 comments on “Vandoorne and Mercedes champions as Mortara wins season finale in Seoul”

  1. Nice to see the final championship top 3 on the podium together at the final race.
    Consistency is key but kinda unsatisfying to me that the champion won once all season, ahead of two drivers with 4 wins each.
    But that’s how points work, so I accept it.

    1. Misread Evans for Dennis. Oops

      1. @eurobrun No, I see how the way I worded it may have confused you. I’ve clarified it now.

    2. @eurobrun I have to say that I feel the opposite. It’s great (in my opinion) that a championship can be won without needing to have the most wins in a season, or even close to it. I’d have been even more impressed if it had been with no wins.

      I see the regularly discussed De Vries only finished one place ahead of the often maligned Wherlien, even with the former in the championship winning team.

    3. José Lopes da Silva
      14th August 2022, 19:07

      Emilio Alzamora won the Moto 125cc world championship of 1999 without winning a single race, while the closest rivals won 5 races each.
      Also, F1 1982.

    4. It’s almost the same points system as F1 – there are just more than 2 or 3 drivers in a weekend that are in a position to actually win a race.

  2. Stoff is back!
    Good to see him winning a title again, it’s been a tough few years after F1.
    A transition season for Formula E, waiting for the Gen 3: could & should be a game changer!

  3. Now that the season is done, I feel I can address this. We are now 8 seasons into this series and I still can’t see it succeeding due to the same flaws it has always had.

    The tracks continue to be horrendous. They look low-rent and inspirationless, the series keeps claiming it’s one of the premier racing series in the world, but it looks about as appealing as the local dirt track racing I sometimes go to near my home town. You saw it today as well, they run on an empty track, without crowds, next to a regular road, on what appears to be a parking lot. Then into a stadium, one that’s not even filled to 5% capacity (again, we’re now 8 years in, they can no longer claim they’re a “growing sport” at this point).

    The racing is still awful, in huge parts thanks to the tracks and the way they build them. They need to start running on legitimate tracks if they want to become a legitimate racing series. It’s good and well to have a street race here or there, not on parking lots, but on real streets. So yeah, keep a track like Monaco around, but get away from tracks like this one, like Berlin, like New Jersey, etc. Stop racing in front of empty grandstands, or no grandstands. Make the sport feel legit. Get the racing to a good level, get rid of gimmicks like attack mode, fan boost, etc. Stop all the crashing into each other once and for all. It’s pretty weird someone can be a WDC leader and eventual winner with only a single win, and it’s not an outlier. It’s completely due to the low standards of racing due to the tracks and the way people race causing chaotic race results all the time.

    Final thing, try and attract more hot young talent and try to get rid of the “F1 rejects” imago. There’s too many aging talents, too many people that have proven to not be F1 worthy in this series, some of the younger ones are a good showcase, especially if they were quick in F1 or before it. But the midlevel and lower talent more or less devalue the perception of everyone around them. You’ll always be perceived as 2nd rate if you keep relying on this. It’s much better to build and create your own stars instead. So go on active recruiting in F2, and perhaps shop overseas in Indycar (Light). Subsidize contracts if you must, invest in getting great names. Ticktum, Giovinazzi, Buemi, to name but a few we can do without easily. Bring in people that won’t make it to F1 from F2 instead. Become an actual F1 alternative option instead of a “I’m here because F1 wouldn’t have me” series.

    Gen 3 cars are coming, put some proper racing tires on them instead of road tires while you’re at it, move to real circuits, refresh the driving talent, get rid of the gimmicks, and start taking the racing as seriously as you want people to perceive it. The series is now almost a decade old and it’s really getting near the make or break point, as far as I’m concerned.

    1. Gen 3 should address some of your issues.
      The cars will be open wheel so no more “Bumper style” racing.
      The circuits should be adapted to the new speed of the cars, so we can expect fixes in the old layouts & new, more flowing Street tracks (St.Petersburg from Indy should be one of them)
      But they’ll remain in the cities, as that’s what makes FE unique.

      Crowds depends on the location: Mexico this year was a sell-out with the stadium fully packed, same as Jakarta with over 60K spectators on Race Day & London had quite a big crowd as well.
      Guess Korea just isn’t very into FE.

    2. Yes, FE has flaws, but not always those you think: The tracks are what is possible with these cars. They need the ReGen-brake zones to get a decent mileage. F1-style stops with a battery swap would solve most of that.
      The fact that the most efficient driver gets the crown, means there is an incentive not to crash, and that the difference in performance between the teams is rather small, so a DNF weighs heavy. The closeness of the field and the tracks invite some accidents, but you see the same in any series where the field is close. Penalties are a solution, but need a sensible approach or you’ll skew the races / championships.
      You prefer the F1 deltas, where the faster teams are over a second faster than the fourth team? One or 2 DNF’s doesn’t matter in F1, if you’re in the fastest car on the track. Heck, the last few years there was a single team that had over a second a lap in their back pocket, waiting to be utilized when the competition seemed close…
      The F1-rejects imago: I guess that’s better than the pay-driver-imago that could be the alternative. A few of the better drivers in this series don’t get a real chance in F1, due to money or politics, and that is a F1 problem, not an FE-problem.
      I would like to see, In FE and F1 that the teams can enter a third car with drivers that had no seat in the series the year before. That way, we would see more names appear in both series, giving them a chance to prove themselves in better material. It would need for instance a budget-cap and a WDC-rule adaptation

  4. Dan Ric can take inspiration from this.

  5. Shame the championship was bought all along.

    1. someone or something
      14th August 2022, 23:19

      You’re like a stopped clock, aren’t ya? Only you’ve stopped at 25:61, so you don’t even get to be right twice a day …

  6. I want to see him in F1 again.

  7. Good on Vandoorne, glad he got this, I followed him in his early career and reckon if he’d stayed in F1 would be a top contender for competitive seats.

    After his post F1 demoralisation great to see him with the passion and winning again.

  8. And both drivers doesn’t have any seats for next year.. and they are both Worldchampions. But i will give it to the Mercedes team they did very well.

    1. Vandoorne almost certainly has a deal with DS. De Vries has been holding out since there was a slim chance of an F1 seat.

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