Formula E: Buemi wins his third victory in Monaco

      Sunday's Formula E race in Monaco was held on a track wet after rain, and this fact caused general concern even before the start, because no one had ridden in such conditions this year, so all the drivers feared that chaos could not be avoided.

      As Dan Tiktum, who plays for Cupra this year, said, "There will be incidents, there will be collisions, there will be broken wings and all that."

      The rain had stopped by the start, but it drizzled during Sunday's qualifying, which resulted in Oliver Rowland, Nissan driver and winner of yesterday's race on the famous city ring. Interestingly, Nick DeVries (Mahindra), who took 2nd place yesterday, started from the 2nd position.

      Max Gunther and Jean-Eric Vergne, DS Penske teammates, started the race from the second row, while Stoffel Vandoorne (Maserati) and Antonio Felix da Costa (Porsche) started from the third row.

      The cars of Tiktum and Sebastien Buemi (Envision), who can rightfully be considered a veteran of Formula E (as well as Formula 1 and WEC), stood on the fourth row of the starting field. By the way, the 8th time is the Swiss's best qualifying achievement so far this season.

      We can add that Sam Bird crashed his McLaren electric car hard in qualifying, so he started from the pit lane.

      Surprisingly, the start was uneventful – everyone understood that any collisions in turn 1 would lead to a massive blockage, but no one was interested in this.

      In general, everyone behaved very disciplined, perhaps even overly cautious, and the top ten retained their positions. One would have expected that as the riders warmed up the tires to more or less normal temperatures, the fight would escalate.

      In particular, the team instructed Devries that he has a great pace, so he should try to attack Rowland. But the Dutch Mahindra racer was in no hurry to take action yet.

      But Buemi was one of the first to take such actions, using the high-power Attack Mode, and by the 4th lap he had already risen to the 4th position.

      More than half of the peloton was using Attack Mode, so there were numerous position changes, while Rowland continued to lead, but on lap 5 he was overtaken by Jean-Eric Vergne - precisely due to this mode. Moreover, the Frenchman, the winner of two championship titles in Formula E, decided to take advantage of the situation to break away from the peloton and by the sixth lap he had already driven away from Rowland by almost 4 seconds.  

      The asphalt was gradually drying out, at least in the area of the racing trajectory, the speeds were gradually increasing – obviously, this was one of the factors that led to the accident of Lola racer Lucas di Grassi. It seems that, with all his experience, he did not calculate the speed and, braking before turning, Portier flew off the track.

      Yellow flags were briefly displayed, but the fight resumed on the 9th lap. Vergne continued to lead, although Rowland somewhat reduced the gap, but the interval between cars still exceeded three seconds. Devries was third, but Gunther and Buemi, who attacked him, were fighting for fourth place. The German racer did not give up, fiercely repelled all attacks.

      Periodically, one or another rider made mistakes on a slippery track, for example, the same Tiktum flew into the safety zone at the Mirabeau turn, but reacted in time, avoided contact with the bumps and returned to the track, although he lost many positions.

      Vergne was in the lead, Rowland was three seconds behind him, but DeVries stayed pretty close to his opponent's Nissan, and the team continued to urge Nick to attack Oliver more boldly.

      On lap 12, Pascal Wehrlein beat several rivals in one sitting, rising to 13th position, but then an accident occurred at the exit of the first corner - Nico Muller could not keep his Andretti electric car on the track and very sensitively applied himself to the barrier. A safety car pulled out, and the marshals began to evacuate the wrecked car.

      On lap 15, they gave a restart, Vergne retained the lead, but it is clear that now his advantage has been reduced to half a second or even less, because Rowland, of course, was going to take advantage of the situation and fight for victory.

      On the next lap, da Costa tried to attack Buemi, and at the hairpin, the narrowest point of the track, they even bumped their wheels, but Sebastien not only did not give in, but soon overtook Gunther, returning to 4th position.

      Rowland rode almost closely behind Vergne, hoping that he would make some kind of mistake, but Jean-Eric acted very competently, did not give his opponent a single chance, so Oliver decided to temporarily retreat and activate Attack Mode.

      And then it happened like this: the high-power mode provides the car with more dynamic acceleration, and Rowland, who rolled back to the 3rd position, decided to recoup at the exit from the tunnel, attacked Devries, but he defended himself well and forced his opponent to leave the track.

      The same thing happened on the next lap, but Rowland took the lead and was in no hurry to regain de Vries' position. Moreover, Nick also activated Attack Mode and both were ahead of Vergne. But soon the effect of this mode on Oliver's car ended, but Nick did not, so the Dutch Mahindra racer soon took the lead.

      However, it seems Rowland didn't really resist and decided to give up the position himself until the stewards intervened.

      On lap 22, Buemi used Attack Mode very effectively and beat Vergne, Rowland and Devries in turn and took the lead of the race, becoming its next leader. He even managed to pull away from Devries by 4 seconds, with fewer laps remaining before the finish.

      On lap 23, de Vries, Rolluland and Vergne started an interesting fight for the 2nd position. In the end, Oliver got it, but Devries dropped back to 5th place, as Nick Cassidy and da Costa also beat him.

      Five laps before the finish, Buemi was ahead by more than four seconds from Rowland, Cassidy rose to third position, but da Costa tried to attack him, but the Andretti rider did not give in and skillfully repelled all attempts. At the same time, there was noticeably more energy in the batteries of his electric car than his rival's, so Cassidy also recorded the best lap of this stage of the race, just in case.

      On the penultimate lap, Vergne, who was already sixth, was overtaken by Pascal Wehrlein, a Porsche racer, and tried to get ahead. Jean-Eric defended himself, but literally at the last percent of the battery charge.

      Meanwhile, the race finished – Sebastien Buemi was the first to see the checkered flag, having already won his third victory on this track, which was another confirmation of his skill. Perhaps luck was also on his side today, but that's the details. After the finish, the Envision driver said that his previous victory was so long ago that he was already beginning to think that he would never win another race. But today he and his team will have something to celebrate!

      The second place was taken by Oliver Rowland, who further consolidated his leading position in the individual standings, and Nick Cassidy rose to the third step of the podium – this is his best achievement of the season.

      After a very successful weekend in Monaco, Rowland has a lot more points than his closest rivals, and there is no doubt that he will do his best to perform equally well at the next stage, home for Nissan. The eighth and ninth races of the season will be held in the Japanese capital on May 17 and 18, and the Nissan factory team will try to distinguish themselves there. By the way, it's not her who's in the lead in the team competition so far, but Porsche, although the difference between them is quite small. Moreover, Nissan has something to fight for.