Text: Understand the original Chedi Xu Bo
A few days ago, the second leg of the Formula E World Championship (hereinafter referred to as FE) 2022 season was held at the Riyadh Circuit in Saudi Arabia. After nearly 50 minutes of fierce fighting, the first prize of this round was won by Venturi's Motara, the vision team driver Flints was runner-up, and the third place was Venturi team driver Di Gerassi.
Riyadh Circuit, Saudi Arabia
Riyadh Top 3 winners in The Second Round: Venturi Team Motara, Vision Team Flynns, Venturi Team Di Grassi (left to right)
Since the second leg was still played at riyadh circuit, the situation on the track was again not repeated. However, the attack mode in this round is 4 minutes, which is 1 minute longer than the attack mode of the first round, which adds more uncertainty to the game.
Mercedes EQ team driver De Vries started from pole position
After winning the first leg of Riyadh, Mercedes EQ driver DeFreis became more and more courageous, and Motara, who defeated Venturi in qualifying, set out from pole position. In the initial stage, De Vries reacted very quickly, holding the first position before the first corner and smoothly entering the following schedule. It was followed by Motara, Vision's Flynns, Venturi's Di Gerassy and Porsche's Lottler, with 5 cars forming the First Group. However, DS Titanium Team's Verne has not been pulled far, as the "head car" of the second group, the gap between it and Lottler is only about 2 seconds.
The first melee between Turn 18 and Turn 19
When the race had just entered lap 3, Ville-Rhein, who was in the middle of the porsche team, launched an attack on da Costa of the DS Titanium Team, trying to attack at turn 18, but without success, before turn 19, da Costa held the inside line and did not let Villein easily overtake. However, due to the lack of timely braking, Van Dorn of the Mercedes EQ team collided with Ville-Rhein at Turn 19, but fortunately the two cars were not in serious trouble.
Porsche driver Verreigen overtook DS Titanic driver Da Costa before turn 1
However, after only two corners, Verlein tried again to attack Da Costa before Turn 1, and this time with tough interior tactics and time-lapse braking. Just at the end of the lap, Van Dorn, who was staring at him, waited for an opportunity to overtake Da Costa in front of corner 21; then Andretti's Ascu moved before turn 1, and unlike Villeline's tactics, he adopted a strategy of attacking from the outside. However, it can be seen that Da Costa's car may not have recovered to its best state due to the crash of the previous night's race, resulting in the speed and rhythm of the car being affected, so it was overtaken one after another.
Venturi driver DeGraci overtook Mercedes EQ driver De Vries with attack mode
In the penultimate 27th minute, Degraci, who had an attack mode, launched an attack on De Vries, who had been in the leading position, and moved in front of Turn 18, but De Vries held the inside line, but two cars collided before Turn 19, causing De Vries, who was already on the outside line, to lose the best driving line, thus losing the first position. Fortunately, Flynns and Motara, who also had an attack mode behind them, also collided, affecting the speed of the car, and did not overtake De Vries after the corner.
Mercedes EQ driver Andretti driver Dennis behind Van Doon is staring at the tiger
In the next lap, Motala had nearly three minutes of attack mode time among the top four drivers, and could easily overtake as long as he was on the straights. Sure enough, just before Turn 18, Motara easily overtook De Vries. Just one lap later, also in the straight line just before Turn 18, Motala overtook teammate Diglas to the leading position. For drivers without attack mode, when facing a car that has turned on attack mode, they can only silently watch it slowly grow larger from the rearview mirror, and then appear in front of them, without any resistance.
The fight in the top four was extremely intense
In the 23rd minute of the game, Lottler, who has an attack mode, attacked Flynns, also completing the overtaking at Turn 18. I thought he could take advantage of the chase and continue to put pressure on de Vries, who was in third place, but he did not expect that just one lap later, Flynns was in the same place, with a strong inside line, to take back the position he had just lost.
Racing Car No. 4 driven by Vision Team driver Flynns (green)
In the penultimate 18th minute, De Vries activated his second attack mode, but lost a position and temporarily finished fourth; he wanted to win the podium with an extra 30 kilowatts of power, but the actual situation was not satisfactory, and de Vries did not find a suitable opportunity to overtake under the blessing of the attack mode of the three laps, but at this time his nightmare had just begun.
Da Costa overtook De Vries strongly
Just after the end of De Vries's attack mode, Verne behind him chose to start at Turn 18 (due to the narrow riyadh track, there are few overtaking points, and drivers generally choose to attack at corners 18, 19, 21 and 1), when the opponent chooses to take the cross line to overtake, De Vries is too close to the inside of Turn 19 due to poor line control, resulting in a collision with the other party, which seriously affects his own cornering speed. Meanwhile, Behind him, Lotler, Dennis, teammates Van Doon and Roland all picked up de Vries, giving up several positions in a row, falling from 4th to 9th.
Mahindra Team driver Sims crashed into the track parapet due to loss of control
The track accident triggers the safety car and eventually takes the race with it
With 10 minutes left in the game, still at turn 18, the eager Flynns finally seized the opportunity to overtake Di Gessie in front of him and occupy the second place. Originally, Di Gerasy still had a chance to overtake his opponents, but just one minute later, Mahindra team driver Sims hit the track parapet due to a loss of control, causing the vehicle to malfunction and triggering the safety car. However, because Sims parked too far from the safety exit, the rescue could not clear the faulty car out of the track in time, and finally the safety car took the race directly to the end. In the end, Venturi's Motara won the championship, followed by Vision's Flynns as runner-up and third from Venturi's Di Grassi, both venturi drivers on the podium.
Both Venturi team drivers were on the podium
Drivers' Standings after the second round
After the second leg, In the drivers' standings, Motara led with 33 points, followed by De Vries with 29 points, followed by Van Doon with 28 points, 4-10: Dennis, Di Grassi, Flynns, Lottler, Sam Bird, Verne and Cassidy.
Constructors' Standings after the second leg
From the team's side, Venturi team became the biggest winner at the Riyadh circuit in the FE 2022 season, with 18 points in the first leg and the first and third place points in the second leg, making it surpass the Mercedes EQ team with 58 points in the constructors' standings and temporarily ranked first in the list. Andretti, Envision and Porsche are in 3-5.
At this point, the FE 2022 season in Riyadh is all over, and the next race will start on February 13 at the Rodgris Brothers Circuit in Mexico, which is also the venue for the F1 Mexican Grand Prix. At that time, we will also bring you the event coverage. For more information about auto racing, please keep an eye on Chedi.