Berlin ePrix: Buemi handed win by Mahindra pitlane blunder

Rosenqvist finished first on the road, 2.9s clear of of Buemi, but picked up a 10-second time penalty for an unsafe release involving his own Mahindra teammate Nick Heidfeld.

While the Swedish driver lost out to Buemi, he maintained enough of a gap over Lucas di Grassi to finish second.

Rosenqvist headed the race from beginning to end, after a dynamite start launched him into a two-second lead on the first lap.

Buemi regrouped after fending off DS Virgin Racing drivers Jose Maria Lopez and Sam Bird and closed to half a second of Rosenqvist by the penultimate lap of the first stint.

A strong in-lap from Rosenqvist doubled his advantage but he almost hit disaster – and the pitting Heidfeld – when he pulled away in his second car as his teammate came into the garage.

Rosenqvist was very briefly delayed but his in-lap had boosted his buffer to Buemi by just enough to retain the lead, although a penalty for an unsafe release seemed inevitable.

The penalty was confirmed with 13 laps remaining and Buemi, who was within a second of the leader, was happy not to attack so that Rosenqvist could maintain a big enough gap to keep second.

That restricted Buemi’s title rival di Grassi to third and meant the Swiss, who was disqualified from Saturday’s race, extended his points lead to 32 points.

“As soon as I saw Felix was going to get a penalty I thought I would not put any pressure on him so he would finish ahead of Lucas,” said Buemi.

“It was a bit on a plate but I’m very happy.”

Asked about the pitlane mix-up after the race Rosenqvist, who is now third in the drivers’ championship, said “you cannot really blame anyone”.

Di Grassi ended up a lonely third after an understated but professional drive up the order from seventh.

Having passed Oliver Turvey early on, di Grassi then benefitted from Bird getting nudged wide by Lopez at Turn 1 after trying to pass his teammate round the outside.

Di Grassi nailed Lopez at Turn 8 a couple of laps later, then sold Jean-Eric Vergne a superb dummy into Turn 1 in the second stint to seal third.

Vergne dropped behind Daniel Abt and Lopez over the remainder of the race to wind up sixth, ahead of a frustrated Bird and a muted Nico Prost.

Oliver Turvey and a charging Nick Heidfeld, who started last, completed the points finishers after ninth-placed runner Jerome d’Ambrosio picked up a drive-through penalty for not adhering to the minimum pitstop time.

Mitch Evans had looked set to add to Jaguar’s points tally but finished 17th of the 18th runners at the flag after a problem with his car swap.

Race results

Pos.		#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1		9	Sébastien Buemi	DAMS	46
2		19	Felix Rosenqvist	Mahindra Racing	46	7.915
3		11	Lucas di Grassi	Team Abt	46	10.862
4		66	Daniel Abt	Team Abt	46	13.631
5		37	Jose Maria Lopez	Virgin Racing	46	20.324
6		25	Jean-Eric Vergne	Techeetah	46	20.751
7		2	Sam Bird	Virgin Racing	46	21.959
8		8	Nicolas Prost	DAMS	46	22.155
9		88	Oliver Turvey	NEXTEV TCR Formula E Team	46	34.949
10		23	Nick Heidfeld	Mahindra Racing	46	35.814
11		28	Antonio Felix da Costa	Andretti Autosport	46	44.057
12		3	Nelson Piquet Jr.	NEXTEV TCR Formula E Team	46	44.439
13		7	Jérôme d'Ambrosio	Dragon Racing	46	47.336
14		33	Stéphane Sarrazin	Techeetah	46	51.653
15		4	Tom Dillmann	Venturi	46	56.977
16		47	Adam Carroll	Jaguar Racing	46	1'05.426
17		20	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	46	1'07.018
18		27	Robin Frijns	Andretti Autosport	46	1'12.083
19		6	Loic Duval	Dragon Racing	33	12 laps
20		5	Maro Engel	Venturi	14	32 laps