2018 Zurich ePrix
The 2018 Zurich ePrix was a Formula E electric car race held before a crowd of about 150,000 spectators at the Zurich Street Circuit in Zurich, Switzerland on 10 June 2018. It was the tenth round of the 2017–18 Formula E Championship, the inaugural running of the event, and the first Swiss circuit race since the 1954 Swiss Grand Prix. The 39-lap race was won by Audi driver Lucas di Grassi after starting from fifth. Sam Bird finished second for Virgin and Dragon driver Jérôme d'Ambrosio was third.
Jaguar driver Mitch Evans won the first pole position of his career by recording the fastest lap in qualifying and he led the opening 17 laps despite reporting rising battery temperatures limiting his ability to harvest electrical energy under braking. Di Grassi gained positions by passing other drivers and he overtook Evans driving into the first corner at the start of lap 18 to take the lead. He maintained the lead for the remainder of the race to claim his first victory of the season and the seventh of his career by 7 seconds over Bird.
The consequence of the final positions meant Jean-Éric Vergne still led the Drivers' Championship despite a drive-through penalty for accelerating before a full course yellow was lifted to clear debris on the track. Bird narrowed Vergne's lead to 23 points and di Grassi's win moved him from sixth to third. Sébastien Buemi moved to fourth by finishing fifth and Felix Rosenqvist fell to fifth after scoring no points. Audi lowered Techeetah's advantage in the Teams' Championship to 33 points while Virgin maintained third with two races left in the season.
Background
Preview
There were ten teams of two drivers each for a total of 20 competitors entered for the event. Coming into the race from Berlin four weeks earlier, Techeetah driver Jean-Éric Vergne led the Drivers' Championship with 162 points. Virgin's Sam Bird was second with 122 points and Felix Rosenqvist of Mahindra was third with 86 points. Audi's Daniel Abt was close behind in fourth with 85 points and Sébastien Buemi of e.Dams-Renault was close behind in fifth with 82 points. Techeetah led the Teams' Championship with 205 points; Audi were second with 161 points and Virgin were third with 139 points. Mahindra were in fourth with 108 points and Jaguar were fifth with 96 points. 87 points were available for the season's final three races which meant Vergne could clinch the Championship in Zurich. Vergne needed to win the race with Bird failing to score any points to win his first Drivers' Championship. Vergne finishing second would mean that Bird would have to win both New York City races with the former not scoring points to become the champion on count-back.Preparations
Preparations for a Formula E race in Switzerland commenced in March 2015 when the Council of States backed a motion put forward by the National Councillor Fathi Derder to exempt electric car racing from a long-standing ban on motor racing in the country. The motion was adopted by the Federal Council in December, allowing electric vehicles to race in Switzerland from 1 April 2016 pending authorisation from local authorities with regards to maximum speeds. Organisers then began putting forward their candidacies for cities to hold the race. They plead for the ePrix to be held in Lugano on 7 May 2016 to replace the Berlin ePrix but this was withdrawn because the required funding of €10 million was not raised and they later supported holding it in Switzerland's largest city Zurich. On 21 September 2017, Zurich was included on the 2017–18 Championship's final calendar in a FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Paris. It was the tenth of twelve scheduled single seater electric car rounds of the 2017–18 Championship and took place at the Zurich Street Circuit on 10 June 2018. Prior to the ePrix, Switzerland's last motor race was the 1954 Swiss Grand Prix at Circuit Bremgarten in Bern: Switzerland banned most motor racing in 1955 after the 1955 Le Mans disaster. Organisers of the race expected around 25,000 to 150,000 people to attend.Although it was reported in the local press that Zurich City Council had granted permission for the race to be run, a spokesperson denied these reports two hours later. However, the city council did give their approval for the race to be held the following month. Preparation for the ePrix commenced, and a three-year contract was signed with the option for an extension to 2024, which was subsequently increased by another three years to 2027. Permits were granted by the office of the mayor of Zurich Corine Mauch to project leader Pascal Derron who led negotiations with local politicians. Derron ensured those who provided the city's infrastructure services were satisfied the ePrix could be held. In December, a board member of Zurich's pedestrian association filed a complaint with Zurich City Council concerning the event. He sought for a referendum as the city was paying CHF 2 million towards the race and argued there was a risk of deteriorating the quality of life and disrupting local transport routes. No action was taken by Zurich City Council.
The layout of the 11-turn circuit was not designed by a professional planner like other tracks but by the CEO of e-Mobil Züri Roger Tognella and his son Andrin by using Google Earth on their home computer. It was officially unveiled to the public on 5 January 2018. Drivers began a lap of the circuit on Enge Harbour at Mythenquai and the layout led back to the harbour via the Stockerstrasse and Alfred-Escher-Strasse streets. The track had different surfaces such as circuit asphalt and new concrete. Some tramlines at turns seven and nine were filled for the weekend and others were untouched. Because of cobblestones in the pit lane, teams adapted to a new software mode as the speed limit was lowered to. Construction of the circuit began in late May and local officials ensured the public lost no access to the city's roadside infrastructure. It was dismantled on 12 June, two days after the ePrix. Buemi stated his belief that a low-downforce set-up would provide drivers with opportunities to reach their top speeds on the two long straights.
Practice
Two practice sessions—both on Sunday morning—were held before the early evening race. The first session ran for 45 minutes and the second lasted half an hour. A half an hour untimed shakedown session was held on Saturday afternoon to enable teams to check the reliability of their cars and their electronic systems at low speed. In the first practice session, held in warm weather, di Grassi used of power to set the fastest lap of 1 minute, 11.995 seconds. Jaguar's Mitch Evans, Abt, Nelson Piquet Jr. of Jaguar, Oliver Turvey for NIO, Bird, Vergne, Rosenqvist, Buemi and José María López of Dragon placed second through tenth. During practice, which saw several drivers venture deep onto the run-off areas, Bird was close by the electrical energy conservative López and was impeded by him at the final corner. López caught Bird out by braking early and trying to let him through on the main straight and Bird lost control of his car's rear on the bumpy track by locking his front brakes. Bird crashed into the barrier, damaging his right-rear suspension and steering but returned to the pit lane to switch into a second car. Turvey damaged his suspension by glancing a barrier and Stéphane Sarrazin of Andretti and Luca Filippi for NIO stopped at turns one and two towards the session's conclusion.After first practice, an annoyed Bird went to López's garage, confronted him about the crash, and the latter attempted to explain his perspective to Bird. López then spoke to his team who reviewed television footage of the incident and apologised to Bird through the media. In second practice, Rosenqvist was fastest with a maximum power lap of 1 minute, 12.007 seconds that he set ten minutes before practice concluded. Evans was 0.054 seconds slower in second and the Dragon pair of Jérôme d'Ambrosio and López were third and fourth. The rest of the top ten heading into qualifying were Virgin's Alex Lynn, Bird, Vergne, André Lotterer of Techeetah, Buemi and Piquet. Traffic forestalling competitor's running and several drivers locked their brakes. Some again went onto the track's run-off areas. Buemi spun entering turn four but sustained light damage to his vehicle's rear from contact with the outside barrier. López locked his rear tyres under braking for turn one and slid sideways into the left-hand side TecPro barrier but he returned to the pit lane with minor bodywork damage. In the session's closing seconds, Lotterer misjudged his braking point and hit the rear of Nico Prost's e.Dams-Renault car at the turn ten hairpin, dislodging Prost's left-rear sidepod.
Qualifying
Sunday's afternoon qualifying session ran for an hour and was divided into four groups of five cars. Each group was determined by a lottery system and was permitted six minutes of on-track activity. All drivers were limited to two timed laps with one at maximum power. The fastest five overall competitors in the four groups participated in a "Super Pole" session with one driver on the track at any time going out in reverse order from fifth to first. Each of the five drivers was limited to one timed lap and the starting order was determined by the competitor's fastest times.. The driver and team who recorded the fastest time were awarded three points towards their respective championships.In the first group of five runners, all competitors bar Vergne waited for four minutes to begin their lap times on the bumpy track. Bird paced the session with a benchmark time, ahead of Buemi, Rosenqvist and Abt. Pole position favourite Vergne could not feel the grip in his car and was the first group's slowest driver. Vergne was summoned to the stewards and reprimanded for violating series regulations because his team misread the line indicating the end of the second sector. This meant he intermittently activated the power mode approximately before then. Evans set the fastest overall lap time in group qualifying in group two of 1 minute, 12.594 seconds. Lotterer took second in the closing seconds of the group, and di Grassi and Piquet were third and fourth. Turvey glanced the turn two barrier with his right-rear wheel, bending a track-rod and he was slowest overall in group qualifying. Track conditions improved as each group passed and attention switched to the third group and whether they could demote the championship contenders further down the grid. However, nobody in group three recorded a lap that put them in the top five as Lynn was fastest, followed by Heidfeld, Edoardo Mortara of Venturi and Andretti driver António Félix da Costa. Venturi's Maro Engel made an error and was the third group's slowest driver.
In group four, the Dragon pair of d'Ambrosio and López were first and second and prevented di Grassi from entering super pole. Prost lost confidence after locking his tyres on his warm-up lap but came within 0.023 seconds of teammate Buemi for seventh overall. Sarrazin and Filippi were group four's two slowest drivers. At the end of group qualifying, Evans, d'Ambrosio, López, Lotterer and Bird qualified for super pole. Evans was the last driver to set a super pole lap and took a wide line over the bumps at turn one. He took his and Jaguar's first pole position in single seater racing with an error-free lap of 1 minute, 12.811 seconds. He was joined on the grid's front row by Lotterer—his best qualifying performance of the season—who had pole position until Evans' lap. Bird, who was first on-track, clipped the barrier for third and it prevented him from reducing Vergne's lead in the Drivers' Championship. D'Ambrosio appeared to go faster than Lotterer but he lost a tenth of a second at the final turn and took fourth. Fifth-placed López drifted sideways and lost a second as he narrowly avoided hitting a wall leaving the turn one right-hander. After qualifying, López received a three-place grid penalty for not slowing under yellow flag conditions in first practice. Lynn lost the same amount of positions due to an inter-team miscommunication that caused him to drive into the fast lane of the pit lane before it opened for group three.