Bethonie WaringAntonio Felix Da Costa takes a lights-to-flag victory on the streets of New York to earn his first Formula E win of the season.
The DS Techeetah driver was unchallenged throughout the race and finished almost a second ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne in P2.
Vandoorne’s second-place finish moves him to the top of the championship standings with four races remaining.
It was a strong start for Da Costa, who stayed ahead of Alexander Sims. A jump start caused Andre Lotterer to jump drop down the order and Vandoorne swept past Sergio Sette Camara to take third.
After the leaders had taken their Attack Mode, it was a four-car train for the lead, with Nyck de Vries joining Da Costa, Sims and Vandoorne.
Mitch Evans, running an alternate Attack Mode strategy, later joined the lead fight to make it a five-car fight.
Vandoorne managed to find a way past Sims and the top two broke away from the rest of the group. The Mercedes driver remained on Da Costa’s tail, but couldn’t get close enough to make a move. Da Costa didn’t put a wheel wrong and took the chequered flag 0.929s ahead.
A bump in the road caused drama further back. It first caught out Evans as he tried to move up the inside of de Vries. The bump sent him into a half spin and he had to take to the run-off, but didn’t lose a position.
De Vries was then caught out by the same bump while challenging Alexander Sims, dropping back behind Evans in the process. While trying to fight back past Evans, he repeated the mistake and damaged his front wing.
Evans managed to find a way past Sims late on to move into third, with Sam Bird coming through from 16th on the grid to take fifth.
Also working his way forward from the tail end of the grid was Edoardo Mortara. Mortara had climbed up to 12th, behind team-mate Lucas Di Grassi and Jean-Eric Vergne. On lap 37 of 29, Di Grassi and Vergne came together at the hairpin. Di Grassi stopped on track, causing a blockage and making slight contact with Sebastien Buemi as he tried to reverse into a position where he could continue. Di Grassi retired further along while Vergne returned to the pits. Oliver Askew was also caught up in the incident.
Mortara came through unscathed to finish 10th and earned an additional point for fastest lap.
Robin Frijns found a way past de Vries late on to finish sixth. Jake Dennis and Andre Lotterer took eighth and ninth.
