Rome E-Prix 2021-22: The Room Where it Happened
(copyright FIA Formula E)
The (Driver’s) Room
Cut to the roof. Jake Dennis enters, mid-sentence.
Dennis: I did not hit him! It’s not true! It’s bulls***! I did not hit him! I did not! (he throws a water bottle to the floor) Oh, hi Mitch.
Mitch Evans: (holding a football) Oh hey Jake, what’s up?
Dennis: I have a problem with Lotterer. He says that I hit him.
Evans: What? Well did you?
Dennis: No, it’s not true! Don’t even ask! What’s new with you?
When Formula E commentator Jack Nicholls announced that, post-race at the Rome E-Prix, there was a new innovation, “we’ve put the drivers in a room,” the hope was presumably that the scenes would capture the intimacy and edge of that pivotal scene in the Tommy Wiseau masterwork film The Room. Instead, we got the drivers who had finished at the front standing awkwardly in a darkened room, watching their own clips on a screen.
With examples such as the Voltage online show of 2018-19, up to the category’s bafflingly violent trailer at the start of 2022, Formula E’s marketers have often aimed at what they believe Gen-Z viewers want. The Driver’s Room is unlikely to be the answer Formula E hoped it would be to bringing access to its competitors, but maybe throwing darts at a wall is better than trying nothing.
Race One
“Are you not entertained?” Mitch Evans owns Rome (copyright FIA Formula E)
Thankfully the race action in the first race in Rome was exciting enough without any frills. Polesitter Stoffel Vandoorne led away from the lights, with Robin Frijns stretching every sinew to try to pass him into the first corner. Behind them, a piece of risk-taking from a frustrated Oliver Rowland in the Mahindra caused a pileup which delayed the progress of Lucas di Grassi, the Nissans of Sebastien Buemi and Maximilian Günther, and the NIO 333s of Oliver Turvey and Dan Ticktum. As a result of this blockage, Dragon-Penske’s Antonio Giovinazzi found himself in the dizzy heights of midfield.
With 30 minutes and one lap remaining, it became a matter of when the least worst time was to take Attack Mode. Nick Cassidy for Envision and Oliver Askew in the Andretti were the first drivers to take it, followed by Antonio Felix da Costa’s DS Techeetah. With the Mercedes pair of Vandoorne and de Vries next of the leading drivers to take Attack Mode, Frijns took a commanding lead at the front, albeit he had used a considerable amount of usable energy pulling out that lead, as had Vandoorne and de Vries staying with him early-on. This proved to be pivotal later.
Mitch Evans’ Jaguar had more usable energy available, and after a slow start both Evans and teammate Sam Bird were clawing their way through the field, with Evans making it past de Bries into third with 16 minutes and one lap remaining. Vandoorne re-passed Frijns, but was being warned by his engineer about overconsumption and would subsequently fall back down the field.
With Frijns struggling on significantly less remaining energy than Evans, the Dutchman fell behind in the chase, allowing the New Zealander a fairly serene run to the finish over the final ten minutes. Bird got up to 6th, making it a good recovery from a qualifying session where the Englishman felt he was impeded by Buemi and missed the knockout section. Jake Dennis’s five-second penalty promoted Bird to 5th overall, in a day that could signal Jaguar’s return to title contention after a poor start to their season.
Evans won, from Frijns, Vandoorne, Jean-Eric Vergne’s DS Techeetah, Bird, da Costa, Mortara, Pascal Wehrlein’s Porsche, Cassidy, and Andre Lotterer in the second Porsche.
Race Two
Jean-Eric Vergne (copyright FIA Formula E)
The start of the second race saw Jean-Eric Vergne, from pole, hold off the charging Dennis into the first corner, while Lotterer was being challenged by Evans, dialled-in again. Evans seemed to be running a totally different race to the rest of the field. Oliver Rowland took Attack mode first, after 12 minutes, and it seemed like most drivers would try and use up their allocation early on, to get on with managing energy levels in the second half.
Evans had other ideas. Vergne led by 1.4 seconds with 35 minutes remaining in the race, and led imperiously while his teammate, da Costa, pushed the unsighted Mortara into the barrier on the inside of Turn Seven, making this a nightmare weekend for the Swiss, who was out with accident damage, causing a Safety Car period, shortly afterward.
On the restart, Evans, with slightly more energy than Vergne, took the lead around the outside and kept hold of it. Vergne, who took Attack Mode with 17 minutes remaining, slipped several places as a consequence and was heard to complain about the strategy. By this time, Lotterer had moved, courtesy of Attack mode, into the lead from Frijns, with Evans in third looking in trouble, especially with Alexander Sims’ beached Mahindra bringing another Safety Car period with ten minutes remaining.
However, Jaguar knew better, timing the two Attack Mode periods mandatory in the rules for the final eight minutes, including added time for the Safety Car periods. Evans was able to streak past Lotterer and still have sufficient energy to successfully withhold the Vergne challenge in the final two laps of the race.
Evans won, from Vergne, Frijns, Lotterer, Vandoorne, Wehrlein, NIO 333’s Oliver Turvey, di Grassi, Buemi, and Askew. Nobody in Rome at the weekend could say they were not entertained.