Maximillian Günther has won the Jakarta E-Prix! The German driver has taken his maiden victory of the season, winning in the second race of the Indonesian double-header this weekend.
The pole-sitter took his first win since 2021, in a race that really spiced up the Championship standings.
It was the same front row as yesterday’s action with Günther leading the pack away alongside Jake Dennis. Both held their places into the first turns ahead of Mitch Evans and Sacha Fenestraz. Before the race had even begun, Sam Bird was having issues with his car whilst sat on the grid and wasn’t able to take part in proceedings.
The order hadn’t changed much after four laps with the drivers taking care of their energy and carefully planning when they would use their attack mode. Yesterday’s winner Pascal Wehrlein nearly took himself out of the race after a close call with Edoardo Mortara. One lap later, both Dennis and Günther went into attack mode to hand the lead to Mitch Evans. The latter then took the outside line for his attack mode and had to drop down back into third.
Andretti substitute David Beckmann retired on lap eight after getting tangled up with Lucas di Grassi, all whilst teammate Jake Dennis lead the race. This meant three cars weren’t racing before the grid had completed ten laps. There were battles at the front again with Mitch Evans making a huge move on Günther a lap later, before the latter took his place back. Although everybody was fighting behind him, Dennis still held his lead.
It was a continuous game of cat and mouse throughout the middle stages of the race with Dennis and Günther. On lap 14 however, there were problems further back with Sebastien Buemi picking up some damage and Jean-Eric Vergne dropping down to 19th with a broken front wing. Günther played a strategic move to take over the lead of the race, taking his attack mode a lap later than Dennis and staying ahead of the Briton.
Championship leader Nick Cassidy then had a nightmarish 20th lap, after making contact with Pascal Wehrlein; the top two in the championship. This really opened up the standings for Dennis, who was still chasing down Günther for the lead. Before long, another big battle was heating up between Wehrlein and Stoffel Vandoorne for fourth place. With the grid looking to change order every lap, so would the championship standings.
By lap 26, Günther had pulled a healthy lead to second place whilst Dennis was far enough ahead of third-placed Evans to all but confirm the top two steps of the podium. With nine laps remaining, the moves had slowed down with every driver saving their energy and choosing when was best to make up places. However, the lap later it opened up again with the two Nissans battling in fourth and fifth place. Vandoorne dropped down from fourth to seventh when Wehrlein then overtook him.
With very little yellow flag action, there were no added laps, so it was down to Günther, Dennis, and Evans to hold on to those all-important podium places. However, the battle for third was heating up as the race came to a close, with the Nissans both chasing it down ahead of Wehrlein.
The front threw would stay the same though, with Günther taking victory ahead of Dennis who closes the gap to just one point in the standings behind Wehrlein. Evans completed the podium.