Diriyah E-Prix: Mercedes' de Vries wins FE's first night race

De Vries completed a race one clean sweep, topping both practice sessions, group qualifying and the superpole shootout as the new Mercedes car made a dominant competitive debut in FE's first night race in Riyadh. 

The manufacturer’s powertrain wrapped up an effective 1-2, with customer team Venturi Racing driver Edoardo Mortara pulling a late move on Audi’s Rene Rast to score second. 

De Vries made a very clean getaway to convert his pole position into the lead on the approach to Turn 1 as he stretched out an immediate 1.2s advantage. His initial escape was aided by a poor start for second-starting Pascal Wehrlein. The Porsche driver then had to defend from Rast, which delayed the pair. 

Although de Vries ran for much of the race with 1% less useable energy, he remained in control of the race despite two safety car intervals. 

A brief concern regarding overconsumption stopped de Vries from pulling completely clear, but he soon swapped mode to amend the issue and balance it out. 

In that time, Rast made his move for second place. He passed Wehrlein around the outside on the approach to the Turn 18 chicane, which prompted Wehrlein to dive for his first use of the 235kW attack mode.  

But the Audi driver never truly closed in on de Vries to threaten his lead, and after the two safety car interludes, the Dutch racer ran to victory by an emphatic 4.1s. 

Fourth-starting Edoardo Mortara used his attack mode to devasting effect, pulling an astonishing double pass on the Jaguar of Mitch Evans and then Wehrlein. Having access the higher power mode, he easily outdragged Evans and then darted across his nose to weave through the shrinking gap between him and Wehrlein. 

Mortara did drop back to third after Rast used his second attack mode, but a second safety car – called for Maximillian Gunther’s heavy crash into the wall after clattering an apex barrier – nullified Rast’s advantage almost immediately. 

That allowed Mortara to take attack mode on the restart and pass the three-time DTM champion to score an impressive second place finish. Evans then managed to demote Rast a place further, as Wehrlein fell to a somewhat quiet fifth place. 

The Nissan e.dams charge was headed by Oliver Rowland, a late climber thanks to BMW Andretti driver Gunther’s shunt. He also gained two positions from the collision between Sam Bird and Alex Lynn, who had been trading placed for sixth. 

But as Bird lunged for the inside line, Lynn appeared to pull across the track to leave Bird with nowhere to go and they spun, ending up facing nose-to-nose. Lynn would retire almost immediately with broken front-left suspension, and Bird continued for some time before pulling into the pits after reporting a strange noise from his car. 

That all allowed a recovering Alexander Sims to lead the Mahindra Racing charge in seventh, as yet another fanboost reward gave second Mercedes driver Stoffel Vandoorne fastest lap and eighth place. Lucas di Grassi completed the Audi line-up in ninth, as Oliver Turvey was a strong 10th for the improving NIO 333 team. 

After a botched group one qualifying run, reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa did well to progress form 18th to 11th, despite tangling with 13th-placed Sebastien Buemi over the line. 

The pair were split by the BMW Andretti of rookie driver Jake Dennis, with fellow first-timers Norman Nato and Nick Cassidy in 14th and 19th. 

Double champion DS Techeetah driver Jean-Eric Vergne ran to a tame 15th ahead of the second Porsche of Andre Lotterer. 

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver		Team	Laps	Gap
1	17	Nyck de Vries		Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team	32
2	48	Edoardo Mortara		Venturi	32	4.119
3	20	Mitch Evans		Jaguar Racing	32	4.619
4	33	René Rast		Team Abt	32	4.852
5	99	Pascal Wehrlein		Porsche Team	32	7.962
6	22	Oliver Rowland		DAMS	32	9.318
7	29	Alexander Sims		Mahindra Racing	32	9.686
8	5	Stoffel Vandoorne		Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team	32	9.973
9	11	Lucas di Grassi		Team Abt	32	11.089
10	8	Oliver Turvey		NIO Formula E Team	32	15.518
11	13	Antonio Felix da Costa		Techeetah	32	16.225
12	27	Jake Dennis		Andretti Autosport	32	17.025
13	23	Sébastien Buemi		DAMS	32	17.273
14	71	Norman Nato		Venturi	32	17.312
15	25	Jean-Eric Vergne		Techeetah	32	18.402
16	36	Andre Lotterer		Porsche Team	32	18.417
17	4	Robin Frijns		Virgin Racing	32	18.822
18	88	Tom Blomqvist		NIO Formula E Team	32	19.072
19	37	Nick Cassidy		Virgin Racing	32	19.951
20	7	Sergio Sette Camara		DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT	32	20.174
21	6	Nico Müller		DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT	32	20.586
	28	Maximilian Gunther		Andretti Autosport	23	9 Laps
	10	Sam Bird		Jaguar Racing	22	10 Laps
	94	Alex Lynn		Mahindra Racing	16	16 Laps
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