Monaco E-Prix: Vergne becomes first repeat winner of 2018/19

DS Techeetah driver Vergne maintained the advantage at the start from Mahindra's Pascal Wehrlein, who lost ground by running wide at Sainte-Devote in the early stages.

Wehrlein dropped behind Oliver Rowland and Felipe Massa as a result, and the top four ran in that formation the remainder of the race distance.

Vergne was forced to rebuff a passing attempt from Nissan's Rowland into Turn 3 on the penultimate lap, and held on to secure his second win of the 2018/19 campaign by 0.201s.

Massa survived late contact with Wehrlein to take the final spot on the podium for Venturi.

Sebastien Buemi was fifth in the second Nissan, followed by BMW's Antonio Felix da Costa, who was sixth after teammate Alexander Sims moved aside just before half-distance.

The Portuguese driver, who had tried to pass Buemi before settling for position, is under investigation for using more power than allowed.

Jaguar's Mitch Evans recovered to seventh after his 10-place grid drop, sealing the position on the penultimate lap after overtaking Envision Virgin's Sam Bird - who fell to 17th right at the end when he picked up a puncture and stopped by the inside wall at Rascasse.

Audi's Daniel Abt is also under investigation following an incident with NIO's Oliver Turvey but is provisionally eighth.

Techeetah's Andre Lotterer rose through the field from 20th to take ninth following a scrappy group one lap in qualifying and benefitted from an attritional midfield battle. 

Lucas di Grassi was forced out of the race just past the midway point when Sims moved to the outside at Turn 3 in a bid to pass Bird and forced the Audi driver into the outside wall.

Virgin's miserable race was compounded further when pre-race points leader Robin Frijns was squeezed into the barrier by Sims approaching Sainte-Devote.

Jaguar's Alex Lynn rounded out the top 10 despite losing the front-right wheel cover following contact that lost him several places at half-distance.

Vergne retakes the lead of the points standings as a result of his win, five points ahead of Andre Lotterer, while Frijns has dropped from first to third.

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Gap
1	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	Techeetah	51
2	22	Oliver Rowland	Nissan e.dams	51	0.201
3	19	Felipe Massa	Venturi	51	1.261
4	94	Pascal Wehrlein	Mahindra Racing	51	1.439
5	23	Sébastien Buemi	Nissan e.dams	51	6.215
6	28	Antonio Felix da Costa	Andretti Autosport	51	15.956
7	20	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	51	16.213
8	66	Daniel Abt	Team Abt	51	16.400
9	36	Andre Lotterer	Techeetah	51	16.848
10	3	Alex Lynn	Jaguar Racing	51	18.112
11	5	Stoffel Vandoorne	HWA AG	51	18.551
12	7	Jose Maria Lopez	Dragon Racing	51	18.860
13	64	Jérôme d'Ambrosio	Mahindra Racing	51	21.488
14	17	Gary Paffett	HWA AG	51	21.853
15	27	Alexander Sims	Andretti Autosport	51	26.934
16	8	Tom Dillmann	NIO Formula E Team	51	31.861
17	2	Sam Bird	Virgin Racing	50	1 Lap
18	4	Robin Frijns	Virgin Racing	46	5 Laps
	16	Oliver Turvey	NIO Formula E Team	32	19 Laps
	11	Lucas di Grassi	Team Abt	31	20 Laps
	48	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi	29	22 Laps
	6	Maximilian Gunther	Dragon Racing	29	22 Laps
View full results