Formula E Sanya: Jake Dennis wins red-flagged race as title leader Mitch Evans retires

Jake Dennis triumphed in a scrappy Sanya E-Prix, as Formula E championship leader Mitch Evans retired following several incidents.

The Porsche-powered Andrettis locked out the front row on the Chinese track with Dennis ahead of team-mate Felipe Drugovich, and while many rivals got a chance to lead the race, they still ended up achieving a 1-2.

All runners were quite cautious, near-conservative, early on, until Pascal Wehrlein started pushing on lap six. Having started from seventh on the grid, the Porsche driver successively overtook Dan Ticktum, Evans and Drugovich to snatch the lead away from Dennis on lap eight.

Wehrlein and Dennis traded the lead for a few laps before Nick Cassidy and Edoardo Mortara surged to the front with attack mode – despite a damaged front wing on the Mahindra following a collision with Oliver Rowland.

A slightly bigger crash saw Ticktum rear-ending Evans, which caused substantial damage to both cars, before a pile-up involving both Jaguars, Ticktum and Zane Maloney caused a red flag. Championship leader Evans had to retire as his rear wing was deemed too damaged by race control following the initial incident with Ticktum.

Dennis and Drugovich shared the front row again for the second standing start, leading Wehrlein, but it was reigning champion Rowland who surged from 12th to the lead within a few laps as he made the most of attack mode.

However, the Nissan driver faded to seventh until he lost control in battle shortly before the end of the race and hit the Tecpro barrier, while team-mate Norman Nato was tagged into the wall by Wehrlein a few laps earlier.

On lap 30, Antonio Felix da Costa was leading but was given a five-second penalty for the earlier incident, and he was passed by Dennis for victory anyway.

Felix da Costa’s penalty promoted Drugovich to second for Andretti’s first-ever 1-2 in Formula E, with Pepe Marti and Nyck de Vries up to third and fourth respectively.

Maximilian Guenther, Nico Mueller, Jean-Eric Vergne, Taylor Barnard and Lucas di Grassi scored the last available points.

The championship is tighter following this race, after frontrunners Evans, Rowland and Mortara all retired, with the Swiss stopping in the run-off on lap 25, while Wehrlein ended up a lowly 14th.

As a consequence, Evans still leads on 128 points from Rowland (109), Mortara (103) and Wehrlein (101), but Dennis has jumped from eighth to sixth on 94 points, narrowly leading Felix da Costa (90) and Mueller (89).

Formula E will reconvene on 4-5 July for another Chinese round with its Shanghai double-header.

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