Edoardo Mortara won the second Diriyah E-Prix after using attack mode to pass fellow Venturi teammate Lucas di Grassi.
After a late spin for Alexander Sims, the race was stopped due to his Mahindra being stuck in the wall and requiring to be recovered. Envision’s Robin Frijns finished second behind Mortara, with Di Grassi third to give Venturi a double podium.
De Vries jumped out in front at the start, with Mortara and Frijns following closely behind. Alexander Sims ran off at the first bend and dropped down the field, while Lucas di Grassi and Andre Lotterer held on to fourth and fifth, respectively.
Frijns was the first of the three leaders to switch to attack mode, followed by De Vries and Mortara, all of whom maintained their positions. Di Grassi had enough leeway in fourth to use his second attack mode and maintain his place, and he did so, leapfrogging Frijns and Mortara when they used their second attack mode of the race.
Di Grassi eventually caught the leading Mercedes and earned a decent run down the start straight when De Vries chose not to use his second assault mode.
The Venturi driver approached De Vries and attempted to drive around him into turn 18, but De Vries ran wide and forced Di Grassi out, who then battled past the Mercedes and into the lead of the race. The stewards indicated that they will investigate the event before opting not to pursue it further.
When Di Grassi’s attack mode expired, Edoardo Mortara, a Venturi teammate, kept his attack mode active and began catching up to Di Grassi. Mortara was able to get a jump on his teammate and took the lead with a clean pass into turn 18.
When De Vries finally used his second attack mode, he slid to fourth, but as it expired, he was put under pressure by Jean-Eric Vergne’s Techeetah, which attacked the Mercedes into turn 18. When the two collided as they approached turn 19, De Vries took the brunt of it, losing momentum and slipping to ninth position.
Frijns passed Di Grassi for second place, but Alexander Sims lost control of his Mahindra at turn six and crashed into the wall with just under ten minutes remaining. The Safety Car was deployed while his car sat stricken on the side of the track, allowing the Mahindra to be collected.
The cars had to come to a halt as they got behind a crane making its way around the tiny, twisting first sector as the field snaked behind the Safety Car, before proceeding moments later.
As vehicles proceeded to go by the crane recovering Sims’s car, race control declared that there would be no time extension at the end of the race due to the late deployment of the Safety Car.
The field crossed the finish line after the race clock had expired, still trailing the Safety Car, to begin the final lap. Race control then declared that the Safety Car would arrive at the conclusion of the lap, which meant that the race’s final two corners would be completed at green flag speeds.
Mortara won the race after rounding the final corner, with Frijns finishing second and Di Grassi completing a double podium for Venturi in third. Andre Lotterer was fourth, ahead of Jake Dennis and Vergne, who were sixth and seventh, respectively.
In eighth place, Stoffel Vandoorne finished ahead of Oliver Rowland and Pascal Wehrlein. De Vries, the polesitter and race one winner, finished eighth and earned the last point. Oliver Askew was the best rookie again, finishing 12th, while Dan Ticktum and Antonio Giovinazzi were the last two drivers on the track, finishing 20th and 21st, respectively.
