Sims heads Andretti one-two in chaotic Formula E race

Alexander Sims has claimed his first Formula E race win in a chaotic second event at the Diriyah E-Prix in Saudi Arabia.

Starting from pole, Sims enjoyed a relatively straightforward race out front as drama unfolded behind him.

Through it all, Maximilian Gunther and Lucas Di Grassi claimed the minor podium places, though Gunther’s second place is under a cloud pending a post-race investigation.

After a fairly subdued start, the action began on Lap 7 when Antonio Felix Da Costa clipped Sebastien Buemi, pitching the Swiss driver into a spin.

Buemi then compounded the issue by rejoining in an unsafe manner, for which he would be slapped with a time penalty while Da Costa picked up a drive through for his part in the incident.

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Da Costa was involved in the race’s second skirmish too, activating Attack Mode on Lap 13 and dropping behind Lucas Di Grassi in the process.

As they squabbled Di Grassi was forced to check up, allowing Bird to have a look around the outside, only for the previous day’s race winner to be attacked by Mitch Evans.

Bird and Evans then touched at Turn 4, with Pascal Wehrlein clouting the former at Turn 5 to take him out of the race.

The exchange earned Evans a drive through penalty, while the resulting Safety Car caused chaos in the pack.

Race leader Sims moved to activate Attack Mode before crossing the Safety Car line, falling behind Da Costa in the process.

As he was allowed back through, the yellow flags out and therefore passing not permitted, Gunther tagged Stoffel Vandoorne.

The race restart was also investigated.

Sims then led from Di Grassi as Da Costa headed to the lane to serve his drive through for the contact with Buemi earlier in the race.

The race was quickly interrupted again when Robert Frijns found the wall at Turn 9.

Officials were too eager to get the race restarted, waving the green flag while Frijn’s car was still being craned away, forcing the hasty deployment of a Full Course Yellow to neutralise the race once more.

The race went green again on Lap 22, Di Grassi taking Attack Mode to fall from second to fourth behind Gunther and Vandoorne.

Able to pick of Vandoorne, Di Grassi couldn’t find a way through on Gunther and was forced to settle for third behind the Andretti Autosport one-two.

Sims now leads the championship after its opening two races by five points over Vandoorne, with Santiago set to play host to the next round on January 18.

Race results: Race 2, Diriyah

Pos	Driver	Team	Laps	Race time
1	A. SIMS	BMW i Andretti Motorsport	30	46:48.327
2	L. DI GRASSI	Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler Formula E Team	30	46:51.144
3	S. VANDOORNE	Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team	30	46:51.908
4	E. MORTARA	ROKiT Venturi Racing	30	46:52.621
5	O. ROWLAND	Nissan e.dams	30	46:53.802
6	D. ABT	Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler Formula E Team	30	47:05.269
7	J. CALADO	Panasonic Jaguar Racing	30	47:05.548
8	J. VERGNE	DS Techeetah	30	47:07.721
9	B. HARTLEY	Geox Dragon	30	47:09.029
10	A. DA COSTA	DS Techeetah	30	47:10.961
11	M. GÜNTHER	BMW i Andretti Motorsport	30	47:13.710
12	S. BUEMI	Nissan e.dams	30	47:14.618
13	N. JANI	TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team	30	47:15.820
14	A. LOTTERER	TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team	30	47:17.373
15	P. WEHRLEIN	Mahindra Racing	30	47:23.617
16	N. DE VRIES	Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team	30	47:24.645
17	F. MASSA	ROKiT Venturi Racing	30	47:34.085
18	M. EVANS	Panasonic Jaguar Racing	30	47:49.432
19	MA QING HUA	NIO 333 FE Team	30	48:16.492
DNF	N. MÜLLER	Geox Dragon	28	45:09.814
DNF	R. FRIJNS	Envision Virgin Racing	18	27:09.645
DNF	S. BIRD	Envision Virgin Racing	13	16:45.189
DNF	J. D’AMBROSIO	Mahindra Racing
DSQ	O. TURVEY	NIO 333 FE Team

Drivers’ championship

Pos	Driver	Pts
1	Alexander Sims	35
2	Stoffel Vandoorne	30
3	Sam Bird	26
4	Oliver Rowland	22
5	Lucas di Grassi	18
6	André Lotterer	18
7	Edoardo Mortara	18
8	Robin Frijns	10
9	Nyck de Vries	8
10	Daniel Abt	8
11	James Calado	6
12	Jean-Éric Vergne	4
13	Antonio Félix da Costa	3
14	Brendon Hartley	2
15	Jérôme D’Ambrosio	2
16	Mitch Evans	2
17	Pascal Wehrlein	0
18	Maximilian Günther	0
19	Felipe Massa	0
20	Sébastien Buemi	0
21	Neel Jani	0
22	Oliver Turvey	0
23	Ma Qing Hua	0
24	Nico Müller	0