LONDON: Mitch Evans in the Jaguar TCS Racing car secured his third win of the Formula E World Championship season with victory in the Jakarta E-Prix.
The Kiwi beat out title rival Jean-Eric Vergne in the DS Techeetah into second with ROKiT Venturi Racing securing its fifth podium of the season via Edoardo Mortara finishing in third.
The Swiss-Italian advanced to the duel stages of qualifying with the second-fastest time, and defeated Jake Dennis in the third Quarter Final before losing out to Antonio Felix da Costa in the penultimate stage to qualify fourth on the grid.
He made a strong start from the second row to maintain position, while Lucas slipped to 11th after lining up in 10th.
After settling into a rhythm, the race was momentarily paused by a Safety Car following a stoppage for Oliver Rowland and was resumed with 40 minutes + one lap remaining.
Opting to utilize the overcut strategy, Mortara ran as high as second place and activated the power boost device himself in the 19th minute.
He rejoined in fourth to resume his fight with Da Costa and cleared the Portuguese pilot in his second Attack Mode period, 12 minutes from the end.
Di Grassi, meanwhile, continued his charge for points and overtook Sebastien Buemi, Nyck de Vries and Pascal Wehrlein to move forwards to seventh.
With an energy advantage on Mitch Evans and Jean-Eric Vergne, Mortara closed in on the battle for the win in the final laps but fell only 0.234 seconds shy of the runner-up spot and 0.967 seconds adrift of victory at the chequered flag.
“A great first race for us and Formula E in Jakarta today,” Jerome D’Ambrosio, team principal at ROKiT Venturi Racing said. “With Edo on the podium in third and Lucas battling forward to seventh, we were able to take home a good haul of points. The heat and humidity meant that the race was quite challenging in terms of both battery and tyre management but our guys did a tremendous job to manage this situation.
“The battle in both the Drivers’ and Teams’ World Championships is extremely close at the moment and with only four weekends remaining this season, we need to maintain our current momentum, we’ll still be taking it on a race-by-race basis and as always, the goal is to do our best,” he added.
“I really enjoyed racing in Jakarta for the first time and I think we can consider this as a successful weekend,” Mortara said. “Because of the high temperatures and humidity, the race was very challenging, not only physically but in terms of managing the tyres and battery. For sure, it was not easy but we executed a very smart strategy.
“After qualifying, our goal was on the podium and in the final laps, I could see that Mitch [Evans] and Jean-Eric [Vergne] were starting to fight one another.
“We joined the battle but unfortunately, there just weren’t enough laps to get past. I’m extremely happy to be back on the podium and now, we focus on Marrakech,” he added.
By taking home third, Mortata secured his fourth podium of the season and the 11th of his career while Di Grassi added six points to the team’s total of 21 from the weekend.
With this result, ROKiT Venturi Racing holds third in the World Teams’ Championship with 169 points while Mortara also lies third in the Drivers’ Standings with 114 points.
The FIA Formula E World Championship’s eighth season will resume on 2 July when the fully-electric series returns to Morocco for the Marrakech E-Prix.
