FP3-
Mitch Evans led the way in a wet Free Practice 3 ahead of the SABIC Berlin E-Prix Round 8, with Gen3 seeing its first outing in rainy conditions, with Saturday’s race winner on it right away.
Rain fell overnight with a light drizzle in the morning creating a slick track surface for the 22 car field to contend with.
NEOM McLaren’s Rene Rast required recovery early on with technical issues, other than that brief Red Flag stoppage, it was a valuable, busy session as teams gathered data.
Mitch Evans put in a 1m 15.955s – some 10 seconds down on FP1’s dry pace – with teammate Sam Bird down in 12th. More encouragement for Jaguar TCS Racing, with its car looking quick in all conditions.
Qualifying-
Robin Frijns and ABT CUPRA pulled off one of the shocks of Season 9 so far in Berlin as the Dutchman headed an all-ABT front-row lockout in the first wet qualifying session.
We saw the ABT CUPRA cars hook it up and finally find their feet, with the stunning front-row lock out in front of the team’s home support. That was Frijns’ second ever Julius Baer Pole Position and a first for the team since its return to the series as well as for partners CUPRA.
Sam Bird couldn’t replicate his pace from yesterday and failed to make it through to the Duels – a big change from being on the front row the day before.
Maximilian Guenther also had a poor result, and will start his race towards the back of the grid after finishing last in the Group B qualifying. With it being the first time in five races that he has failed to progress into the qualifying Duels.
Round 8-
Envision Racing’s Nick Cassidy picked his moment to hit the front and went on to seal the race win in the SABIC Berlin E-Prix Round 8, as he got the best of a tight field to clamber from eighth to the top set of the podium.
The unique Berlin Tempelhof Circuit threw up a second intensely tactical race in as many days, brimming with overtakes – 172 in total making for 362 over the weekend.
The Kiwi started eighth and hit the front on Lap 25, he drove supremely to stay there – setting the pace, given the okay from his engineer on Lap 33, and mastering Formula E’s tightrope of ultimate pace, racecraft and energy.
Jake Dennis was in striking distance come the chequered flag, just half a second back at the flag but not close enough to topple Cassidy – who now has four podiums on the spin and draws to within four points of standings leader Pascal Wehrlein.
Wehrlein started sixth, in a stronger position than recent races having complained of poor one-lap pace in qualifying. He did lead a couple of times – the first on Lap 15 – but ultimately couldn’t live with the leader and found himself shuffled to seventh at the race’s end.
The standout drive was arguably Maximilian Guenther’s from 21st on the grid. The Maserati MSG Racing driver followed up on securing the team’s first podium in Round 7 with a sixth a day later – climbing 15 positions through the pack.
The full top 10 are: P1: Cassidy, P2: Dennis, P3: Vergne, P4: Evans, P5: Da Costa, P6: Guenther, P7: Wehrlein, P8: Vandoorne, P9: Muller and P10: Ticktum.
We are back racing in just under two weeks, with our next race being in Monaco on the 6th May for Round 9!
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