Bird holds on to win Rome ePrix

Sam Bird has seen off a late challenge from Mitch Evans to win the Formula E Rome ePrix as the New Zealander faded to ninth.

Bird (DS Virgin) won by nearly a second from a fast-finishing Lucas di Grassi (Audi Sport) and Andre Lotterer (Techeetah).

Pole-sitter Felix Rosenqvist (Mahindra) took the initial race lead and emerged in front when the car changes had been complete.

However, the Swede hit a kerb on Lap 23 and broke his left-rear suspension, bringing about an early end to his race.

Bird had run second to Rosenqvist until that point and therefore assumed the lead by around three seconds over Evans (Jaguar).

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A three-way battle for the lead developed between Bird, Evans, and di Grassi after the full course yellow.

Evans attempted a move with four laps to go but Bird managed to shut the door, and the New Zealander was instead passed by di Grassi two laps later.

Bird won by 0.970s but Evans slumped to ninth on the final lap when he all but ran out of useable energy on the final lap.

Daniel Abt (Audi) finished fourth from Jean-Eric Vergne (Techeetah), who leads the championship.

Rounding out the top 10 were Sebastien Buemi, Jerome d’Ambrosio, Maro Engel, Evans, and Edoardo Mortara.

Race 8 is in Paris on April 28.

Race results: Race 7, Rome

Pos	Num	Driver	Team	Race time/Split
1	2	Sam Bird	DS Virgin Racing	58:20.656 (33 laps)
2	1	Lucas di Grassi	Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler	+0.970
3	18	André Lotterer	Techeetah	+9.518
4	66	Daniel Abt	Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler	+10.167
5	25	Jean-Éric Vergne	Techeetah	+17.444
6	9	Sébastien Buemi	Renault e.dams	+19.835
7	7	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	Dragon Racing	+24.379
8	5	Maro Engel	Venturi Formula E Team	+26.350
9	20	Mitch Evans	Panasonic Jaguar Racing	+37.709
10	4	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi Formula E Team	+40.739
11	28	António Félix da Costa	MS&AD Andretti Formula E	+42.680
12	16	Oliver Turvey	NIO Formula E Team	+48.833
13	68	Luca Filippi	NIO Formula E Team	+49.331
14	8	Nico Prost	Renault e.dams	+1:13.880
15	27	Tom Blomqvist	MS&AD Andretti Formula E	+1:31.832
16	23	Nick Heidfeld	Mahindra Racing	+1:44.774
17	6	José María López	Dragon Racing	+4 laps
DNF	19	Felix Rosenqvist	Mahindra Racing
DNF	3	Nelson Piquet Jr.	Panasonic Jaguar Racing
DNF	36	Alex Lynn	DS Virgin Racing

Championship points

Pos	Driver	Pts
1	Jean-Éric Vergne	119
2	Sam Bird	101
3	Felix Rosenqvist	82
4	Sébastien Buemi	60
5	Daniel Abt	50
6	Nelson Piquet Jr.	45
7	Mitch Evans	43
8	Lucas di Grassi	39
9	André Lotterer	33
10	Oliver Turvey	32
11	Edoardo Mortara	29
12	Nick Heidfeld	21
13	Alex Lynn	17
14	António Félix da Costa	16
15	José María López	13
16	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	12
17	Maro Engel	11
18	Nico Prost	7
19	Tom Blomqvist	4
20	Luca Filippi	1
21	Kamui Kobayashi	0
22	Neel Jani	0