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Jake Boxall-Legge

New York E-Prix: Cassidy wins despite crashing out in multi-car wreck

Amid a sudden burst of heavy rain that scurried south from the Manhattan skyline, the circuit around the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal quickly became saturated with water – creating treacherous conditions and building a puddle on the straight approaching Turn 6.

Cassidy then splashed through the puddle and aquaplaned, spilling his Envision car into the barriers at a vast rate of knots – with Lucas di Grassi and Stoffel Vandoorne following him into the barrier.

But owing to the considerable level of clean-up required by the track marshals, race control called an end to the race – picking up the classification from the end of lap 29 to declare Cassidy the victor.

The New Zealander thus successfully converted from pole, where he set his car up on the starting grid pointing to the inside line in a bid to cover off Vandoorne. But that proved unnecessary as Cassidy launched ahead, as Vandoorne floundered and lost places to di Grassi and Sebastien Buemi off the bat.

Nick Cassidy, Envision Racing, Audi e-tron FE07, Lucas di Grassi, Venturi Racing, Silver Arrow 02, Sebastien Buemi, Nissan e.Dams, Nissan IM03, the rest of the field (Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images)

Although di Grassi was attempting to reel Cassidy in, he struggled to break into the half-second buffer that the Kiwi was keeping in reserve. Cassidy also oversaw any assaults from di Grassi through the attack mode stage, keeping the Venturi driver at bay and also fending off a lap 24 tilt on fanboost.

Ironically enough, di Grassi's failure to make the most of his fanboost allowed Vandoorne to make the pass on the Brazilian with his own five-second boost of power. But di Grassi rallied and put a move back on Vandoorne at the start of lap 28, which the rapidly catching Frijns then pounced on and stole the inside line to collect third place, as rain began to fall.

Cassidy had over a second on di Grassi amid the drizzle, with Frijns keeping tabs on the pair and looking to pick up any pieces – which ultimately came to pass on the turn of lap 30 when the rain intensified immediately.

The downpour then looked to have claimed Cassidy's victory chances as the Envision driver aquaplaned and speared into the wall, followed in by di Grassi and Vandoorne.

But Frijns cannily took his foot off the accelerator and stopped in time, keeping his head above water and leaving the corner with the lead of the race.

Edoardo Mortara also aquaplaned and knocked off his right-front wheel fender, but was able to come to a halt just before reaching the wreckage – pulling a 180-degree turn to rejoin behind Frijns.

In the meantime, Buemi was also a casualty of the rain while Pascal Wehrlein came to a halt on the exit of the corner and was subsequently collected by Sam Bird and Jake Dennis – which let Mitch Evans trickle through.

The race was thus red-flagged to clean up the mess, as the deluge immediately halted as the remaining cars tiptoed back to the pits. But given the damage to the wall, the race was called off – which restored Cassidy to the top step.

Di Grassi's later pass on Vandoorne and successful preservation of second from Frijns ensured that the Brazilian secured his best finish of the 2021-22 season, as Frijns put two Envisions on the podium.

Vandoorne was thus left to be content with fourth, while Mortara rescued a strong fifth place to retain his title lead and lessen the impact from the Belgian in the points.

Like his last two races in Jakarta and Marrakech, Mortara held off on taking his second and final attack mode and used it to ignite a charge back through the order after dropping to 10th, manoeuvring his way through the lower half of the points.

Buemi, despite also getting caught out in the rain, bagged sixth place ahead of Wehrlein - whose incident with Bird and Dennis will be investigated. Dennis collected eighth place ahead of Bird, while Nyck de Vries completed the top 10 - but had been fourth at the red flag before the results were taken from two laps prior.

Evans got 11th after qualifying 14th, but was involved in a first-lap Turn 6 pile-up involving Jean-Eric Vergne - which put the Frenchman well behind the rest of the field and gave both drivers a significant dent to their title hopes.

Maximilian Guenther was 12th, and also faces an investigation along with Andre Lotterer as they were involved in an incident with Antonio Felix da Costa - which proved terminal for the Portuguese driver.

Dragon endured a miserable race, with Sergio Sette Camara unable to take to the start as a legacy of his impact damage from qualifying, while Giovinazzi was caught up in the lap 1 skirmish between Vergne and Evans and thus had to pit and retire.

Cla Driver Team Laps Time Gap Interval Points
1 New Zealand Nick Cassidy United Kingdom Virgin Racing 29 35'04.095     28
2 Brazil Lucas di Grassi Monaco Venturi 29 35'05.218 1.123 1.123 18
3 Netherlands Robin Frijns United Kingdom Virgin Racing 29 35'05.766 1.671 0.548 15
4 Belgium Stoffel Vandoorne Germany Mercedes 29 35'07.788 3.693 2.022 12
5 Switzerland Edoardo Mortara Monaco Venturi 29 35'08.829 4.734 1.041 11
6 Switzerland Sébastien Buemi France DAMS 29 35'09.665 5.570 0.836 8
7 Germany Pascal Wehrlein Germany Porsche Team 29 35'09.878 5.783 0.213 6
8 United Kingdom Jake Dennis United States Andretti Autosport 29 35'10.690 6.595 0.812 4
9 United Kingdom Sam Bird United Kingdom Jaguar Racing 29 35'11.302 7.207 0.612 2
10 Netherlands Nyck de Vries Germany Mercedes 29 35'11.598 7.503 0.296 1
11 New Zealand Mitch Evans United Kingdom Jaguar Racing 29 35'12.700 8.605 1.102  
12 Germany Maximilian Gunther France DAMS 29 35'17.858 13.763 5.158  
13 Germany Andre Lotterer Germany Porsche Team 29 35'18.479 14.384 0.621  
14 United Kingdom Oliver Rowland India Mahindra Racing 29 35'19.019 14.924 0.540  
15 United Kingdom Alexander Sims India Mahindra Racing 29 35'20.743 16.648 1.724  
16 United Kingdom Oliver Turvey United Kingdom NIO Formula E Team 29 35'23.802 19.707 3.059  
17 United Kingdom Dan Ticktum United Kingdom NIO Formula E Team 29 35'29.407 25.312 5.605  
18 France Jean-Eric Vergne France Techeetah 29 35'57.113 53.018 27.706  
19 United States Oliver Askew United States Andretti Autosport 29 36'05.377 1'01.282 8.264  
  Portugal Antonio Felix da Costa France Techeetah 28 34'02.249 1 Lap 1 Lap  
  Italy Antonio Giovinazzi United States Dragon Racing 0        
  Brazil Sergio Sette Camara United States Dragon Racing 0        
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