Sunday’s season finale was heavily impacted by the rain, with multiple stoppages and drivers being unhappened about the race conditions. As a result, the race was eventually cancelled well over an hour and a half after it began.
The race started on time, but behind the safety car for two laps before the first red flag was eventually brought out. Following a few more laps behind the safety car again, it was once again brought to a halt as the conditions proved too dangerous for the drivers.
With a curfew of 8 pm, three hours after the race start, action would resume just after an hour and a half after the race start. It would be a rolling start with track conditions improved enough to go racing.
Cassidy would lead the field down to the first corner with the drivers taking caution going through the outdoor section but struggling for grip.
As Norman Nato took attack mode, Jake Dennis was closing the gap and the Nissan driver was luckily not to end up in the wall. The World Champion managed to get past the French driver as the pair made contact at various points over the course of the lap.
Dan Ticktum was able to capitalise on a slide from Edoardo Mortara to move up into the points-paying positions down at turn eight, diving up the inside but still giving him enough room to race.
Jean-Eric Vergne was the next driver to have a big slide and create an opportunity for Lucas di Grassi behind, who appeared to make contact with the double-Champion but to no avail. This came Vergne already was in a slide prior to the contact.
Jean-Eric Vergne was then forced to come into the pitlane for a tyre change as he dropped down the order. The track was ramping up as the lap time began to fall, with Cassidy out in front ahead of Mitch Evans.
Following the safety car period, there were four laps added to the end of the race, taking the total up to 40.
With the action now being as chaotic as Saturday, it was Nick Cassidy that would win the final race of the season. Mitch Evans came in second, while Jake Dennis would be on the podium once again.
For Cassidy, it may hurt a little that they won the race and if he completed the race on Saturday, he may still have been in the title fight. However, this result does mean that Envision Racing would be crowned the Teams’ Champions, while Cassidy secured second in the Drivers’ Championship.
Dennis’ third place also secured P3 in the Teams’ Championship for Avalanche Andretti which meant that for both Jaguar and Porsche, their works teams were beaten by one of their customer teams.
But how did we get here?
After the celebrations and delight of taking the World Championship on Saturday, it was back to reality for Jake Dennis in Free Practice One as he went straight on down at the first corner, being able to flick spin his Andretti car around and get going again.
However, the rest of the session was fairly uneventful with teams being careful due to how little spare parts the teams had after the car park chaos during Saturday’s E-Prix. The session ended with Jaguar fastest courtesy of Mitch Evans, who took pole on Saturday prior to a grid penalty being applied. It was a Jaguar 1-2 finish in fact as Sam Bird went second quickest, with Sebastian Buemi keeping the Jaguar powertrain streak alive with his third-place finish.
What made these top three intriguing was how they were fastest in different sectors. Buemi was quickest through sector one, Evans fastest in his Jaguar through the second sector and his teammate Bird fastest in the third and final sector.
Group A consisted of the World Champion, Jake Dennis, Nick Cassidy, Jean-Eric Vergne, Sebastian Buemi, Sam Bird, Jake Hughes, Rene Rast, Lucas Di Grassi, Dan Ticktum, Sergio Sette Camara and Robin Frijns.
After the penultimate runs of the session, it was Nick Cassidy, Sebastian Bumei, Sam Bird and Dan Ticktum, that were going to progress if the leaderboard remained unchanged. However, the World Champion Jake Dennis was setting some very strong sectors and was able to move up to second place, knocking the NIO 333 driver of Ticktum out of the top four.
Jean-Eric Vergne and Rene Rast would also miss out, along with Sergio Sette Camara, Lucas Di Grassi, Jake Hughes and Robin Frijns. This meant that all four Teams’ Championship protagonists in this session would progress to the duels and guarantee a top-eight start in the race.
In Group B was Saturday’s race winner, Mitch Evans, along with Pascal Wehrlein, Maxi Guenther, Antonio Felix Da Costa, Norman Nato, Stoffel Vandoorne, Edoardo Mortara, Sacha Fenestraz, Andre Lotterer, Nico Mueller and Roberto Mehri.
With the remaining four Teams’ Championship protagonists in this group, only one was going to progress ahead of the final flying laps from the drivers. That would be Mitch Evans, who set a lap time that was equalled to by Nico Mueller.
As rain outside was being reported, there wasn’t much improvement and both Porsche drivers would be out in the duels, with Wehrlien narrowly missing out in fifth an Da Costa down in tenth.
Andre Lotterer, who is hoping to help his Avalanche Andretti team take victory could only manage the eighth fastest time as Mitch Evans led the way to make it two out of two for Jaguar with both drivers progressing to the duels.
Evans, Mueller, Nato and Vandoorne were the four progressing to the duels with Wehrlein, Mortara, Lotterer, Guenther, Fenestraz, Da Costa and Mehri all missing out.
The duels were set and first up was the battle between the Jaguar-powered Envision Racing car of Sebastian Buemi and the sole-Porsche powered car remaining of Jake Dennis in his Avalanche Andretti. 0.018 seconds would separate the pair after Dennis nailed the final sector to claw back the deficit that he suffered earlier in the lap.
Duel number two was between Sam Bird and the driver that is heavily rumoured to be replacing him next season in Nick Cassidy. It would also be an all-Jaguar powertrain battle with Cassidy hoping to put the disappointment of Saturday behind him. Bird appeared to brush the wall on the way to the Custom House chicane and this allowed Cassidy to gain a decent advantage over the British driver, enough to progress by 0.291 seconds.
The third duel was between Norman Nato and Nico Mueller, with the German driver hoping to recreate the impressive form that he showed in the duels in Berlin. However, the Nissan driver had too much for the ABT Cupra and would progress 0.265 seconds.
Season eight World Champion, Stoffel Vandoorne, would face Saturday’s race winner, Mitch Evans, in the final quarter-final duel. The DS Penske had a massive snap of oversteer with Evans getting narrowly ahead through sector one. The ex-Formula One driver would be slower in all three sectors, despite a decent lap to be 0.239 seconds behind and out of qualifying.
Semi-final one would see Jake Dennis face Nick Cassidy in a repeat of the final duel in Rome. Cassidy was faster through the first sector and only 0.003 seconds quicker in the second and after sector three, he would finish 0.181 seconds faster than the World Champion and progress to the final.
Norman Nato guaranteed himself a top-four start by reaching the semi-finals and this in itself was a good result for the Nissan team. With Mitch Evans in very strong form this weekend, he eased his way to the final by over half a second. Nato’s lap time would also be faster than the time that Dennis set, therefore he would start the race from third.
The final would be not only a battle of the Jaguar powertrains but also for second place in the Drivers’ Championship. Three points were on offer for the winner and with that, the lead of the Teams’ Championship as both Jaguar TCS and Envision Racing were level on points coming into the session. It would also be a carbon copy of the final duel from Saturday.
Evans would be narrowly faster through the first sector, but Cassidy was able to respond with a faster second sector. It would all come down to the third and final sector and there would be only 0.010 seconds separating the pair with Nick Cassidy claiming pole and the all-important three points. This would mean that Envision Racing would be leading the Teams’ Championship