Formula E's dramatic start

Bird’s Big Cat glory

Sam Bird kept up his record of winning a race in every Formula E season run so far with victory in the second encounter at the Diriyah double-header, to kick off his fresh start as a Jaguar Racing driver in the best way possible. Fittingly, it was his old team-mate he beat.

Bird’s duel with Envision Virgin’s Robin Frijns, who started from his first series pole position, was Formula E at its best. The lead changed seven times as the pair raced cleanly and negotiated the strategic calls of when to take their two mandatory boosts of extra power from the Attack Mode feature. Running off line through the special zone to collect the extra 35Kw cost time and often a loss of position, but the boost in performance then allowed the driver in Attack Mode to make the place back up again on the main straight. Artificial and a bit of a gimmick? Certainly – but it does create strategy intrigue and wheel-to-wheel excitement. Bird’s second dose of Attack Mode proved decisive, a few minutes before the race was neutralised and eventually stopped early by a red flag.

On the radio, Bird initially struggled to say anything to celebrate his 10^th Formula E victory. “I’m a bit emotional actually,” he mumbled. “It’s been really great.” He later paid tribute to Frijns for the “respectful” racing that had played out between the pair.

Accidents cloud Saudi races

While the Bird and Frijns battle was a positive, two major accidents led to hospital visits for the respective drivers, who both counted themselves fortunate to escape serious injury. The first for Edoardo Mortara was an odd and deeply concerning one, as the Swiss Venturi Racing driver was left helpless to stop his car crashing after a rear brake failsafe system failure. It occurred at the end of a practice session as he attempted a practice start and resulted in a heavy head-on impact with a barrier. The software glitch that caused the incident led to his Mercedes-powered team and the factory Mercedes-EQ drivers being banned from qualifying for the second race until it was rectified, which it was before the start. Mortara was cleared to race after admitting he had feared for his life during the accident, but his car could not be repaired in time for him to take part.

The second big accident occurred during the second race and caused the early red-flag stoppage. Following a separate collision between Maximilian Guenther and Tom Blomqvist, Mahindra’s Alex Lynn and Jaguar’s Mitch Evans got together at the end of the main straight. Evans described the incident as an “aeroplane crash” as Lynn’s car was launched, inverted and slid along upside down. The accident was not shown on TV, which is never a good sign, but reports soon filtered back that Lynn was conscious and had escaped serious injury.

It was a frightening end to a tough weekend for the British driver, who was blamed for a collision with Bird in the first race that led to the former team-mates crunching into each other nose to nose. Lynn was given a three-place grid penalty for the second race as punishment.

Merc driver de Vries leads the points

Dutch Mercedes-EQ driver Nyck de Vries dominated the first day of action, topping both free practice and qualifying, then led all the way to claim his first Formula E victory in race one. He successfully negotiated two safety car interruptions to secure his dominant win, following the Lynn/Bird collision and another when Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein rammed Maximilian Guenther’s Andretti BMW entry into the wall.

Mortara’s software-induced practice shunt ahead of race two derailed Merc’s weekend thereafter, but de Vries salvaged ninth place in the second round and leaves Saudi Arabia with 32 points, seven more than Bird who is two ahead of Frijns. As for three-time champion team DS Techeetah, its main talking point was the all-too-physical battle between reigning champ Antonio Felix da Costa and double title winner Jean-Eric Vergne in the second race. Contact between the team-mates delayed both, but they finished third and fourth on the road – only for Vergne to lose his podium finish for running out of time to take his second dose of Attack Mode power because of the race’s early stoppage.

Formula E heads to Rome in Italy for round three, which takes place on 10^th April.

Tanak dominates Arctic Rally Finland

In the snows of Scandinavia, Ott Tänak put in a faultless performance to dominate the Arctic Rally Finland, a new event to the World Rally Championship, to score his second victory for Hyundai. The 2019 World Rally Champion won six of the 10 stages and led from start to finish – the first time he has done so at this level.

Estonian Tänak beat pre-event favourite Kalle Rovanpera by an impressive 17.5 seconds, although it still marked the best WRC result for the 20-year-old Finn, whose Toyota claimed victory on the Powerstage. That has carried Rovanpera to the head of the 2021 WRC points table after two events.

Rovanpera just pipped Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville to second by 2.3 seconds as the Belgian continued to adapt to working with new co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe. Behind them, Ireland just got the better of Wales as Craig Breen did enough to claim fourth in his Hyundai ahead of Elfyn Evans (Toyota).

Monte Carlo Rally winner Sébastien Ogier was out of sorts from the start in his Toyota Yaris and suffered on Friday from running first on the road in conditions that were warmer than expected. Then on Saturday the seven-time champion went off into the snow on the last corner of the last stage and failed to add to his score.

Rovanpera now heads the WRC standings on 39 points, four ahead of Neuville who in turn is four ahead of Ogier and Evans. Tänak is fifth on 27 points ahead of the next round, the Croatia Rally, on 22^nd-25^th April.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.