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Your support makes all the difference.Lucas Di Grassi insists the ABB FIA Formula E Championship is still anyone’s after ensuring Audi won the battle of the German big beasts at the BMW i Berlin E-Prix to roar back into contention for the title.
The Season 3 champion handed bragging rights to Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler after coming from third position to take the chequered flag while local rival BMW i Andretti Motorsport had to settle for fourth position through Antonio Felix Da Costa in the race they headlined.
For the first time in Formula E history the podium was made up of former champions as Season 2 winner Sebastien Buemi took second place – his first podium of the season – and titleholder Jean-Eric Vergne came third.
The result saw Vergne take his lead at the top of the rankings to just six points ahead of Di Grassi while a group of five drivers opened up a gap ahead of the chasing pack as we enter the final three races of the season.
But with Season 5 being one of the most unpredictable seasons of motorsport ever with eight different winners from the ten races, Di Grassi expected plenty of names to still be in the fight when we enter the double-header finale in New York City.
“It is still very early to say for the title because there are still five or six drivers very near,” said Di Grassi who was taking his second win of the season. “I think there will be five to seven people still fighting for the title when we get to New York.
“Basically, anyone who wins a race comes straight back into the Championship. You can probably go down all the way to eighth and if they win then they’re straight back into the fight.
“Being the first time that three Champions were on the podium is pretty cool but it is just a race where three of us performed very well.
“The way to do it is to go race by race, try to win each race – of course it is very unlikely, but we’ll try to win and score as many points as possible and see where we are at Race 2 in New York. That is basically the strategy.”
Di Grassi took just seven minutes to overturn Stoffel Vandoorne and pole-sitter Sebastien Buemi from third place and quickly opened a big gap for the entirety of the race as Audi made it two wins in two years.
Reigning champion Vergne was back to his tenacious best as he carved through the opposition from eighth position while teammate Andre Lotterer – who sat just a point behind his teammate pre-race – was forced out of the race with battery issues.
In a cleanly fought race, Panasonic Jaguar Racing’s Alex Lynn was the only other racer not to finish as heartbreakingly his car gave out with the Brit sitting in fifth position – a great return having recently replaced Nelson Piquet JR for the second half of the season.
The Championship enters a short break now before the final race of the European leg – a second Swiss debut in two years as Bern takes over from Zurich on June 22 – before the series enters its endgame in New York.
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