Monaco E-Prix: Vandoorne beats Evans to take Formula E championship lead

Having started strongly to combat any threat from fellow front-row starter Pascal Wehrlein, Evans held the lead through the race's first third, dictating the pace as the frontrunners elected to save energy in the early period.

But as the race's action slowly began to spool up, Evans then came under threat from Wehrlein, who considered a move at the Nouvelle Chicane, but decided against it.

This came at the point where a number of drivers elected to expend their first attack mode activations, where Jean-Eric Vergne was the first among the frontrunners to take the 250kW power mode.

Thus, the DS Techeetah was in position to assume the lead when Evans and Wehrlein claimed their own attack modes, while Wehrlein eventually cleared the polesitter as the Kiwi began to struggle compared to his rivals on energy available.

Evans then lost a further place to Vandoorne, while Wehrlein then moved past Vergne to pick up the lead of the race with attack mode in his pocket.

But Wehrlein began to slow, gifting the lead to Vergne, who picked up his second dose of attack mode on the following lap - which would prove to be to his detriment.

Taking the wide line at Casino Square, Vergne had no option to let Vandoorne and Evans pass, and his misery was compounded when Wehrlein's Porsche stranded post-tunnel produced a full-course yellow to ensure Vergne's useable attack mode would elapse.

Andre Lotterer, Porsche, Porsche 99X Electric, Stoffel Vandoorne, Mercedes-Benz EQ, EQ Silver Arrow 02, Robin Frijns, Envision Racing, Audi e-tron FE07

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

No sooner had Wehrlein's slowing car peeled off into the service road at the Nouvelle Chicane, allowing Vandoorne to pick up attack mode with no loss in position on lap 19, Andre Lotterer's wall-bound Porsche prompted the arrival of the safety car.

Lotterer was attempting to hold position from Oliver Rowland at Sainte Devote, and the Brit's ambitious lunge not only resulted in his Mahindra hitting the wall, but also left Lotterer with nowhere to go except the Tecpro barrier.

With the race resuming on lap 21, Vandoorne hardly had to look back and, although Evans was able to eat into a gap that had previously stood at three seconds, the Belgian crossed the line to secure victory - and the championship lead.

Evans overcame his earlier energy issues, partially exacerbated by being out in the lead, to build a two-second lead over Vergne and take a conciliatory second place finish.

Vergne completed the podium following his earlier spell in the lead, although was under heavy assault from Robin Frijns by the end of the race as the Envision driver made some choice attack mode activations to move forward from seventh on the grid.

Antonio Felix da Costa overcame a poor qualifying to sit close to Frijns' tail by the end, as the Portuguese driver was unable to deliver on the promise of practice and instead was turfed out in group qualifying.

Antonio Felix da Costa, DS Techeetah, DS E-Tense FE21, Maximilian Gunther, Nissan e.dams, Nissan IM03

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Da Costa's second attack mode activation allowed him to clear Lucas di Grassi, who was ultimately unable to resist the Season 6 champion's advances despite a stern defence.

Nick Cassidy collected seventh after a typically swashbuckling drive, capitalising on using his attack mode early and then being in position to take advantage when Nissan e.dams' Maximilian Guenther began to run dry on useable energy at the race's climax.

Sebastien Buemi converted a last-place start to salvage points for Nissan in eighth place, crossing the line a mere 0.047s clear of Avalanche Andretti's Jake Dennis.

Nyck de Vries ensured Mercedes bookended the scorers with 10th place, crossing the line a second ahead of Alexander Sims - who continues to wait for his first point of the season.

Edoardo Mortara was on course for points before an unspecified issue forced the Venturi driver to pit and retire from the race.

Formula E Monaco E-Prix - Race results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Stoffel Vandoorne	Mercedes	30	51'12.473
2	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	30	51'13.758	1.285	1.285
3	Jean-Eric Vergne	Techeetah	30	51'15.766	3.293	2.008
4	Robin Frijns	Virgin Racing	30	51'15.940	3.467	0.174
5	Antonio Felix da Costa	Techeetah	30	51'16.425	3.952	0.485
6	Lucas di Grassi	Venturi	30	51'20.606	8.133	4.181
7	Nick Cassidy	Virgin Racing	30	51'27.746	15.273	7.140
8	Sébastien Buemi	DAMS	30	51'30.246	17.773	2.500
9	Jake Dennis	Andretti Autosport	30	51'30.293	17.820	0.047
10	Nyck de Vries	Mercedes	30	51'30.756	18.283	0.463
11	Alexander Sims	Mahindra Racing	30	51'31.823	19.350	1.067
12	Dan Ticktum	NIO Formula E Team	30	51'32.229	19.756	0.406
13	Sergio Sette Camara	Dragon Racing	30	51'35.367	22.894	3.138
14	Antonio Giovinazzi	Dragon Racing	30	51'35.460	22.987	0.093
15	Oliver Turvey	NIO Formula E Team	30	51'35.671	23.198	0.211
16	Oliver Askew	Andretti Autosport	30	51'35.905	23.432	0.234
17	Maximilian Gunther	DAMS	30	51'52.141	39.668	16.236
	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi	23	40'23.244	7 Laps	7 Laps
	Oliver Rowland	Mahindra Racing	18	30'28.714	12 Laps	5 Laps
	Andre Lotterer	Porsche Team	18	30'28.955	12 Laps	0.241
	Pascal Wehrlein	Porsche Team	15	24'11.896	15 Laps	3 Laps
	Sam Bird	Jaguar Racing	7	11'38.444	23 Laps	8 Laps
View full results