Mitch Evans completed a clean sweep of the Formula E race wins in Rome for Jaguar, despite an incident-plagued second race that ended in a one-lap shootout.
Evans blasted from tenth on the grid to win the opening race of the weekend on Saturday, and he took the lead in the second race well beyond the halfway point.
The Kiwi began fourth and quickly passed Jake Dennis’ Avalanche Andretti BMW and Andre Lotterer’s Porsche.
The safety car was deployed shortly after Evans moved into second place to retrieve former Formula 1 driver Antonio Giovinazzi’s wrecked Dragon-Penske, as the Italian’s terrible home weekend came to an end when he stopped on the track.
Evans overtook polesitter and two-time Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne on the restart to seize the lead of the race.
When Lotterer and Robin Frijns of the Audi-powered Envision entry adopted attack mode, he was passed by Evans, who waited longer than any other driver to use his attack mode — with only one activation possible in the Sunday race, for eight minutes of extra energy.
When the safety car was deployed again for Alexander Sims’ Mahindra, Evans’ plan appeared to be particularly dangerous, but fortunately for the Kiwi, the safety car returned in time for Evans to switch to attack mode.
Evans barely dropped to fourth place after taking it, and he rapidly passed Vergne, Frijns, and Lotterer to reclaim the lead.
Evans also survived a one-lap shootout at the finish of the race, which was forced after Frijns’ teammate Nick Cassidy crashed into the wall while battling for a top-six spot.
Evans was able to hold off Vergne for his second victory of the day, capping off a fantastic weekend for the Jaguar team, which had had a rough start to the 2022 season.
Vergne finished second to take the lead in the drivers’ standings, with Frijns rounding off the podium and Porsche’s Lotterer fourth.
Saturday’s polesitter Stoffel Vandoorne finished fifth for Mercedes EQ, ahead of Mexico E-Prix winner Pascal Wehrlein and NIO 333’s Oliver Turvey, who finished seventh – the team’s highest place since the second race of last year’s season opener.
Ex-champions Lucas di Grassi (Venturi) and Sebastien Buemi (Nissan e.dams) rounded out the top ten, as did Turvey’s teammate Dan Ticktum, who benefited from a safety car procedure infringement penalty for fellow rookie Oliver Askew (Andretti).
Di Grassi had finished sixth on the road but was handed a time penalty for colliding with Dennis, who retired from the race.
Edoardo Mortara, a teammate of the Brazilian, retired after colliding with the wall and therefore lost the championship lead. He’d crashed with Antonio Felix da Costa at Turn 4 earlier in the race, and da Costa was later penalized by the stewards. Mortara is now sixth in the standings after his DNF.
In addition to di Grassi and da Costa, incumbent champion Nyck de Vries was given a penalty for colliding with Sergio Sette Camara, which cost him a points finish.
