Formula E News

Formula E was its’ predictable bonkers self as it returned to London for the first time in 5 years. Laura Leslie runs through the most interesting stats to emerge from the weekend.

So far in 2020/21 we’ve had 13 races, 10 different winners, 10 different pole sitters and an unbelievable 19 different drivers on the podium. Championship leader Nyck de Vries has a 6 point advantage over Robin Frijns despite only having 6 top 10 finishes in the 13 races so far. De Vries left London with a brace of 2^nd place finishes, ending Mercedes-EQ’s 6 race podium drought, which thrust him from 10^th in the championship, to the lead as he took advantage of a double no-score for former leader Sam Bird.

Alex Lynn scored his 1^st win in the series in R2 in London and came away with 44 points, more than any other driver, to move from 17^th in the standings to 6^th and just 17 points off de Vries. Indeed the gap between 12^th placed Jean-Eric Vergne and de Vries is just 28 points. With 30 on offer from each race at the double header finale in Berlin, it means any one of 12 drivers could be leading the championship ahead of the final race. 18 drivers are still in with a mathematical shot of winning the championship.

A total of 3 cars were disqualified from each of the races across the weekend. Nissan suffered a double disqualification in R1 after overusing its’ energy allocation, the team’s 2^nd double disqualification of the year after suffering the same fate in R1 at Puebla. Lucas di Grassi was the other casualty of disqualification, after becoming the 1^st driver in series history to be shown the black flag thanks to Audi Sport’s safety car pitlane gamble.

Di Grassi’s disqualification meant Lynn won despite not leading a single lap of R2. This is the 5^th time such an incident has happened in the 7 years the series has run. A remarkable number when you compare it to Formula One which has only had 7 such incidents across 72 years.

In London R1 it was Jake Dennis who claimed victory, his 2^nd of the year and he became just the 3^rd driver to win more than 1 race in 2020/21. The win moved BMW i Andretti into title contention as it sits 5^th in the standings just 22 points behind leaders Envision Virgin Racing.

Envision Virgin finds itself in a peculiar position of leading the championship with 2 races to go despite not actually winning a race the entire year so far. The team has had 4 2^nd place finishes and 13 top 10 finishes so far this season.

Following Joel Eriksson’s 10^th place finish in London R2, all 25 drivers who have entered a Formula E race in 2020/21 have now scored at least a point. Eriksson’s point helped end Dragon / Penske Autosport’s 7 race drought and moved it further away from NIO 333 at the bottom of the standings. NIO have not scored a point since Oliver Turvey finished 8^th in R2 at Valencia 7 races ago.