Nick Cassidy wins Portland E-Prix as runner-up Jake Dennis moves top of drivers championship
Dennis started on pole but couldn’t hold the lead as Envision’s Cassidy came from P10 to win
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Envision Racing’s Nick Cassidy won his third race of the season after a breathtaking performance at the inaugural Southwire Portland E-Prix. The Kiwi put in a remarkable display to climb from tenth on the grid to take victory in Oregon.
Cassidy narrowly pipped fellow title contender, Avalanche Andretti’s Jake Dennis, to the win.
The victory puts Cassidy second in the Drivers’ standings, just one point behind Dennis who has taken the Championship lead, with TAG Heuer Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein dropping down to third.
And speaking after the race, a visibly ecstatic Cassidy said, “It’s cool. I’ve had a good run in America the last couple of years. I love racing here.
“That race was fun. Look it’s close. The guys we’re racing are top. Jake did an amazing job in quali. I think he was unlucky to be starting on pole - today wasn’t the race to be doing that. And António in these races is always fantastic as well. It’s close, it’s fun, it’s Formula E.
“To be fair, I saw Mitch up with me at stages, I saw Seb, I saw Sam. And we all started far back. So credit to Jaguar and credit to Envision Racing. What a car, what a powertrain.”
Cassidy measured his race to perfection starting from P10 on the grid as the 22-strong field jostled for superiority over the 32-lap race. It is the first time the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship has raced at the famed Portland International Raceway, and Formula E’s unique balancing act between energy efficiency and outright pace came to the fore.
The strategic battle for top spot was clear from the opening lap as positions and race leaders changed corner by corner in groups five and six wide at points, resulting in 403 passes during the race.
Kiwi Cassidy led the way several times but got the better of Da Costa, himself a race leader, on Lap 28 with the decisive move, only a few turns after the Portuguese had seized the initiative.
Cassidy first hit the front on Lap 3 while Da Costa clambered through the pack from P8 to pile the pressure on the Envision Racing driver right to the flag but Cassidy held fast for a third win of Season 9.
Jake Dennis started in Pole Position and led the opening stages but couldn’t time his late-race charge as precisely as Cassidy, though he did manage to pass Da Costa in the final lap to push the Portuguese into third.
Going into the race, Pascal Wehrlein was leading the Drivers’ standings by just one point ahead of Dennis. The German was fortunate to escape contact and come home in ninth, just inside the points at the chequered flag. Wehrlein sits in third on 136 points, trailing the leading pair of Dennis and Cassidy on 154 and 153 points respectively.
On his 29th birthday, Mitch Evans (Jaguar TCS Racing) recovered from 20th on the grid to fourth – earning the ABB Driver of Progress Award for the most places gained in the race - and ensuring he remains in the title fight on 122 points with four races to come in Season 9.
Off the track, more than 20,000 attended the sold-out debut race for the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in Portland.
Cheerleaders from local NBA team, the Portland Trail Blazers entertained fans, while first-year forward for the Trail Blazers, Jabari Walker, also enjoyed the race. Olympic champion skier Lindsey Vonn was embedded with the Jaguar TCS Racing team and experienced a high-speed electric lap of the track.
American rapper, singer and fashion designer Jaden Smith unveiled his own unique livery design on a Formula E GEN3 race car – the fastest, lightest most powerful and efficient electric race car ever built – in the Allianz Fan Village before the race.
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