Felix Rosenqvist won the third round of the 2017-18 Formula E season from third on the grid, taking the championship lead for the first time in his career.
Formula E's third round of 2017-18 took place at Marrakesh on 13 January 2018, with Mahindra's Felix Rosenqvist winning from third on the grid. Sebastien Buemi finished second for e.Dams-Renault, Sam Bird took third for Virgin, and Rosenqvist moved to the top of the championship.
Formula E's third round of the 2017-18 season took place at Marrakesh on 13 January 2018, on a 2.97 km street circuit in the city's Agdal district. Felix Rosenqvist took the chequered flag for Mahindra after starting third, and the win lifted him to the top of the standings for the first time in his career.
What was the Marrakesh round's place in the calendar?
The FIA World Motor Sport Council added the Marrakesh ePrix to the 2017-18 calendar in September 2017. It was the third of twelve single-seater races that season and the second time the city had hosted the series.
The layout has 12 turns and runs anticlockwise. Its stewards were led by chairman Paulo Longoni, with Achim Loth and the former Bentley factory driver Andy Soucek alongside him.
A third-place start, a pole-sitter who led early, and a win that put Felix Rosenqvist on top of the Formula E standings for the first time.
Where did the championship stand going into Marrakesh?
Bird led the Drivers' Championship on 35 points, with Vergne two points behind him in second and Rosenqvist six points further back in third. Mortara, the best-placed rookie, was fourth on 24 points, and Heidfeld was fifth on 15.
In the Teams' table Mahindra led on 44 points, ahead of Virgin on 41 and Techeetah on 33. Venturi on 30 and Jaguar on 27 were battling for fourth.
Why was the minimum pit stop time dropped?
The FIA ended the mandatory minimum pit stop time, which had been reduced gradually as teams became quicker in the pits, until the federation judged that the fastest achievable time had been reached.
Opinions were divided. Lucas di Grassi, the 2016-17 champion, backed the move but said it should have been changed before the season began. Bird was concerned that drivers in a hurry would not fasten their harnesses properly, which would lower safety standards.
Team representatives signed a letter setting out their concerns, including the seat belt question. As a result the change was pushed back to the Santiago ePrix, giving teams time to buy sports car style harnesses for their crews.
Which drivers changed for the round?
Two pre-race changes were made. Tom Blomqvist was signed to race for Andretti at Marrakesh and for the remainder of the year, after Kamui Kobayashi had driven for the team in Hong Kong. Jose Maria Lopez replaced Neel Jani at Dragon once Jani and the team agreed to end their partnership early.
An in-season rookie test was arranged for the day after the race, with teams allowed six hours of running. Drivers without an e-licence could take part in that session. In the race itself ten teams ran two cars each, making 20 starters.
How did practice unfold?
Two sessions took place on Saturday morning, following a shakedown on Friday afternoon. Di Grassi was fastest in the opener with 1 minute, 20.310 seconds, while Abt's time of 1 minute, 19.760 seconds in the second session was an unofficial track record.
The first session was dusty, and lap times fell by around a second as the surface cleaned up. Several drivers went wide while finding the limits of the track, and d'Ambrosio was the next fastest driver after di Grassi.
Software problems hit the Venturis, as a fault cut the powertrains of Mortara and Maro Engel seven times each. Fog descended during the second session, but it was never thick enough to halt running. Buemi finished that session third.
Who took pole, and how did qualifying work?
Buemi took pole with 1 minute, 20.355 seconds, his ninth career pole, the first since the 2017 Paris race. Bird, Rosenqvist, Lopez and di Grassi filled the next four places on the Super Pole grid.
Qualifying lasted an hour and was split into four groups of five cars, drawn by lottery, with six minutes of track time per group. Each driver was allowed two timed laps, one at full power. The five fastest drivers went into Super Pole, where each set a single lap in reverse order from fifth to first.
The early benchmark came in group three, where Rosenqvist set 1 minute, 20.115 seconds before Bird, who was four-tenths slower. Heidfeld, meanwhile, went too quickly into turn eleven, slid into an outside barrier and damaged his car, while Mortara's electrical problems at the final corner left him 18th on the grid.
Lotterer was moved back to 20th for missing the weighbridge signal, and Turvey and d'Ambrosio began from the pit lane with technical faults.
What happened at the start?
Buemi got a clean getaway and kept the lead, while Bird and Rosenqvist stayed in touch. Abt and Lynn made contact on lap two, and Lynn went into the run-off and rejoined in 19th. Buemi had started in his spare car after his race car suffered a water pump failure.
Fan Boost, an extra 100 kW (130 hp) for the second car, was awarded to the three drivers picked by fan vote: Buemi, di Grassi and Abt. Before the start Spark Racing Technology swapped Rosenqvist's battery at Mahindra's request, and Audi made a precautionary inverter change on di Grassi's car.
Lotterer's contact sent Prost spinning on lap three, which let Turvey climb the order. Di Grassi and Piquet fought over fourth until di Grassi's car slowed with a battery management fault, and he returned to the garage.
How did the midfield battles develop?
Behind the leaders the field was far from settled. By the close of the first lap Vergne had climbed from 13th into 10th, while d'Ambrosio lost four positions from his pit lane start. Several incidents followed in the middle order: Filippi and Mortara collided, and Felix da Costa struck Heidfeld, who gestured angrily at him.
Abt was handed a drive-through because of his earlier clash with Lynn, and he rejoined behind Lynn in 15th. Turvey, who had moved up when Prost was spun, held 15th for a spell as well. By the end of the first stint Vergne was sixth and his team-mate Lotterer was 13th.
With the Audis losing time, Lopez moved up to fourth. That was the order the race was running in when the leaders made their stops, and it set up the strategic decisions that followed.
What decided the outcome?
The late stages were shaped by a full-course yellow and by Rosenqvist's move on Buemi for the lead on lap 29. Buemi's Fan Boost could not be used on the car he was driving, and that proved decisive.
A full-course yellow for Lotterer's stranded car let most drivers pit for their second cars, and Buemi kept the lead through the stops. Lotterer had retired on lap 15 after a hardware fault locked his brakes, and Turvey later retired with a technical problem in his second car.
Rosenqvist caught Buemi and went past him for the lead on lap 29, on the back straight leading into the turn seven left-hander, using more energy than the Swiss driver had available. Buemi had been unable to use his Fan Boost, which was not programmed for the car he was driving.
With three laps to go, Mortara moved toward his Venturi team-mate Engel, and the pair made contact. Engel, with little room, ran into the side of Heidfeld, while Mortara's car was too damaged to continue and he parked at the edge of the circuit.
Piquet set the fastest lap, 1 minute, 22.832 seconds, on the penultimate lap, earning a point. Rosenqvist completed 33 laps and won by 0.945 seconds from Buemi, with Bird third on the podium.
Engel's drive-through, applied after the race and turned into a time addition, dropped him to 12th, and Heidfeld inherited seventh. Prost had 20 seconds added for speeding under the full-course yellow and fell to 13th.
| Position | Driver | Team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Felix Rosenqvist | Mahindra | 33 laps, second win in a row |
| 2nd | Sebastien Buemi | e.Dams-Renault | 0.945 seconds behind the winner |
| 3rd | Sam Bird | Virgin | Completed the podium |
| 4th | Nelson Piquet Jr. | Jaguar | Equalled his best result of the season |
| 5th | Jean-Eric Vergne | Techeetah | Fifth place after a strong run |
What did the result mean for the title fight?
For Rosenqvist, the win came with a clear sense of momentum. He spoke of his satisfaction at leading the championship, and he said it made him more inclined to avoid unnecessary risks in the races to come.
Bird's third place kept him in the fight. He finished four points behind the new leader, after a race in which his car had been affected by a problem he had chosen to live with rather than change the part during the event.
Vergne's fifth place was enough to keep him in contention, although it dropped him to third in the standings behind both Rosenqvist and Bird. The top of the table was now split by only a handful of points, with the rest of the season still to be run.
How did the drivers and teams respond?
Rosenqvist said he no longer thought of himself as a rookie, and he had learned a lot from the defeat he suffered in Marrakesh a year earlier. Buemi did not mind losing, because he felt Rosenqvist was simply settling an old score after the Berlin win was revoked.
Bird said his car had shown the same fault since Hong Kong, and he had decided not to change the component. He had not expected to finish in his first car at all, and he felt the full-course yellow had saved him.
Engel was baffled by his penalty, arguing that he had been trying to avoid damage by using the inside kerbs. Abt thought his own drive-through was harsh, and di Grassi believed third place would have been easy without his technical problems. Audi's team principal, Allan McNish, promised the team would return to competitiveness at the next rounds.
Where did the standings stand after Marrakesh?
Rosenqvist reached the top of the Drivers' table with 54 points for the first time, four points clear of Bird in second. Vergne dropped to third after finishing fifth, Piquet moved up to fourth with 25 points, while Mortara finished the day fifth in the standings.
Mahindra's Teams' lead grew to 75 points. Virgin were 17 points adrift but still second, Techeetah held third, and Jaguar overtook Venturi for fourth with nine rounds still to run.
