Bird victorious in cut-short Diriyah race

Sam Bird won the second race of the Diriyah E-Prix in a race that was cut shirt due to a late-race incident with Mahindra’s Alex Lynn conscious and taken to hospital following the incident.

Poleman Robin Frijns had a clean start that allowed him to gain distance from the cars behind him. Just one position behind, Bird quickly overtook Sergio Sette-Camara for P2.

Some places behind, Tom Blomqvist was dropping places in the standings while the Techeetah duo were moving up to the Top 5.

The strong battle between Frijns and Bird for the lead started early into the race and went on for most of it. The Dutchman and his former teammate switched up positions multiple times, using Attack Mode in between.

Sette Camara was able to hold onto his position for multiple laps, until Jean-Eric Vergne and later Antonio Felix da Costa overtook him.

The first full course yellow of the race came after Porsche’s Psascal Wehrlein made contact with BMW i and later hit the wall, having to retire from the race. The German was penalized with a drive through.

At the front, Frijns and Bird were still closely fighting for first while two places behind them Vergne and da Costa had their own battle. The Frenchman and the Portuguese came as close to crashing into each other while taking a turn, but Vergne came out victorious from that duel.

It would be a couple of laps later, with approximately eight minutes from the end of the race, that the second full course yellow would be deployed. The official broadcast showed Buemi’s car stopped on track, but the standings were also showing at least three more cars stopped: Guenther, Evans, and Lynn.

Race control announced that Safety Car would be deployed, and seconds later red flags were waved meaning the race would not be restarted.

As all the drivers were back at the pitlane, Bird hopped off his car victorious. He became the only driver to score a win in every Formula E season having taken a victory in all seven Formula E seasons to date. Frijns and Vergne, who were second and third respectively by the time the race was red flagged, eventually earned the P2 and P3 trophies.

Mahindra Racing tweeted that Lynn was “conscious, talking, and on his way to hospital for checks” after his accident.