2017 New York City ePrix

The 2017 New York City ePrix were a pair of Formula E electric car races held on July 15 and 16, 2017 at Brooklyn Street Circuit in Red Hook, Brooklyn before a two-day crowd of 20,000 people. They were the ninth and tenth races of the 2016–17 Formula E season and the first New York City ePrix. The first race, contested over 43 laps on 15 July, was won by Virgin driver Sam Bird after starting from fourth place. The Techeetah duo of Jean-Éric Vergne and Stéphane Sarrazin took second and third. The longer 49-lap race held the next day was won by Bird from pole position. Mahindra teammates Felix Rosenqvist and Nick Heidfeld finished second and third.
Alex Lynn started from pole position for the first race by recording the fastest lap in qualifying, but Daniel Abt passed him at the start. Abt elected to conserve electrical energy, meaning he could not establish a significant lead at the front and later struggled with his brakes, prompting his team to request he focus on harvesting electrical energy. After twice not being able to pass Abt two laps previously, Bird overtook Abt for first the lead on lap 16. Bird maintained the lead after switching into a second car, until a safety car was necessitated for Heidfeld's car. At the lap 41-restart, Bird blocked a pass by Vergne on the final lap to win. There were two lead changes among two different drivers during the course of the race.
Bird carried over his form from the previous day and won the pole position for the second race, but lost the lead to Rosenqvist at the start. However, he was able to remain close behind Rosenqvist early in the race, catching the latter off guard following a restart, and passed him to retake the lead on the 11th lap. Lynn stopped his car on track nine laps later, prompting a full course yellow flag, and several drivers made pit stops to switch into their second cars. Bird chose to remain on track for one additional lap, and retook the lead with extra electrical energy. Bird opened up a significant lead over the rest of the field, and won the race. There was one lead change among two different drivers during the course of the race.
The victories were Bird's fourth and fifth of his career and he became the first driver to win both races of a double header weekend since Nico Prost at the 2016 London ePrix. The results allowed Lucas di Grassi to lower the lead of Drivers' Championship leader Sébastien Buemi to ten points. Rosenqvist maintained third position while Bird's two victories moved him from eighth to fourth and Prost fell to fifth. e.Dams-Renault maintained their Teams' Championship lead with 229 points and increased their gap over Audi Sport ABT by seven points. Mahindra remained in third and Virgin consolidated fourth with two races left in the season.

Background to race weekend

Preview

Coming into the double header from Berlin five weeks earlier, e.Dams-Renault driver Sébastien Buemi led the Drivers' Championship with 157 points, 32 ahead Lucas di Grassi in second, and a further 39 in front of third-placed Felix Rosenqvist. Nico Prost was fourth on 72 points, nine points ahead of Nick Heidfeld in fifth position. e.Dams-Renault led the Teams' Championship with 229 points; Audi Sport ABT were second on 171 points, and Mahindra third with 149 points. With 97 points, Virgin were in fourth place, and Techeetah was fifth 40 points adrift. e.Dams-Renault and Buemi had dominated the championship with di Grassi winning the Mexico City ePrix and Rosenqvist securing the first Berlin ePrix victory. Di Grassi, Sam Bird, Jean-Éric Vergne, José María López and Rosenqvist had all finished in second place at least once, and Rosenqvist and Mahindra teammate Heidfeld along with di Grassi and Bird had all taken at least one third-place.

Preparations

In March 2014, it was announced that Formula E was working with New York City authorities to bring a motor race to the area. Formula E's founder Alejandro Agag told CNN in May 2016 he was "very optimistic" about the possibility of hosting an event in the city, having visited potential sites there, "Our dream would be to have a race in New York." Originally, planners considered Governors Island, Central Park, and Liberty State Park in Jersey City as possible locations for the track. However, these sites were not chosen since a Governors Island track would have been too costly; a Central Park circuit would have required cutting down trees; and Liberty State Park is outside city limits. New York City deputy mayor Alicia Glen visited Paris in May 2016. After attending the ePrix, she lent her support to the New York City race with backing from the New York City Economic Development Corporation. A one-year contract to stage the race was signed with a renewal option every year for the next ten years.
, where the race was held
On September 21, 2016, officials announced the New York City ePrix would be held on the long Brooklyn Street Circuit in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook. Senior figures supported the race with mayor Bill de Blasio calling Red Hook the place where is "no better home for the ePrix", and the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile president Jean Todt said bringing the series to the city was "an amazing achievement in itself". The event was confirmed one week later as part of Formula E's 2016–17 schedule by the FIA World Motor Sports Council as a double header round. They were the ninth and tenth single-seater electric car races of the season, and were held on July 15 and 16, 2017. It was the first FIA-sanctioned open-wheel motor sport round to be held in New York City, and its first motor race since 1896. The New York City ePrix was the third city to hold a Formula E race in the United States, following the Miami ePrix in 2015 and the Long Beach ePrix in 2015 and 2016. The press expected the races to be attended by about 18,000 to 40,000 spectators.
The first pictures of the planned layout were released to the media on September 21. Construction of the track began on July 2, 13 days before the first race, and finished 11 days later. More than $20 million was spent renovating the area which included the dismantling of pedestrian crosswalks, sections of curb and bus canopies because they protruded into the circuit and a terminal guardhouse in the track's centre was rebuilt to make it portable for moving before and after the event. Rosenqvist described the track as "one of those really technical circuits" and believed the layout was comparable to the Circuit des Invalides.

World Endurance Championship clash

With the races scheduled for July 15 and 16, the event conflicted with the 2017 6 Hours of Nürburgring. The clash occurred because the CEO of the World Endurance Championship Gérard Neveu and teams agreed not to hold a race within four weeks after the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the Nürburgring required a two-week gap leading into a proposed 30 July date for the German Grand Prix. Previously Neveu and Agag had a "gentlemen's agreement", preventing their respective series from holding races on the same weekend as several drivers participate in both disciplines. The dates for the New York City races could not be changed because of its location and ship docking schedules, and the Nürburgring event was not rescheduled due to freight needing transporting to Mexico City and the circuit had been rented for the weekend after. WEC and Formula E reached an agreement in July 2017, preventing both series from clashing in 2018.
Prost and Nelson Piquet Jr. were the first two WEC drivers to confirm their participation in New York in February, with Jaguar's Adam Carroll leaving the endurance racing series to focus on Formula E. Bird reached an agreement with his team AF Corse to contest the New York races, and was partnered at Virgin by the team's development driver Alex Lynn after López was required to prioritize WEC by Toyota. Championship leader Buemi could not reach an agreement that would allow him to enter the first race because of logistical problems, and Toyota mandated he attend the Nürburgring WEC round. He was replaced by 2016 GP2 Series champion and Super Formula driver Pierre Gasly.

Race one

Practice and qualifying

Two practice sessions—both on Saturday morning—were held before the late afternoon race. The first session ran for 45 minutes and the second for 30 minutes. A 30-minute shakedown session took place on Friday afternoon in which no competitive lap times were set was held on a wet track for the first time in Formula E history. Lynn was fastest in the first session, which took place on a damp track created by heavy rain from Friday but dried as the session progressed, with a late lap of 1 minute, 5.977 seconds, almost two-tenths of a second faster than teammate Bird in second and Rosenqvist third. Prost was fourth-fastest, ahead of both Audi Sport ABT drivers Daniel Abt and di Grassi. Jérôme d'Ambrosio, Mitch Evans, Robin Frijns and Adam Carroll rounded out the session's top-ten drivers. The session was temporarily halted three minutes in when Tom Dillmann stopped his car on track and could not restart. Vergne later drifted wide onto the run-off area but avoided damage to his car. Rosenqvist used of power to set the second practice session's fastest lap time, at 1 minute, 2.423 seconds despite minor contact with a wall leaving turn five with his right-rear tire, damaging its suspension. The damage however was not severe enough to rule him out and was repaired. He was three-tenths of a second faster than teammate Heidfeld in second and Prost third. Bird, the Audi Sport ABT duo of di Grassi and Abt, Loïc Duval, Evans, Frijns and Lynn completed the top ten. Late in the session, di Grassi drove to the side of the track with a battery management system problem and could not restart his car, necessitating race control to activate the full course yellow procedure.
qualified second and led the first race's 15 laps before retiring with car problems.|left
Saturday's afternoon qualifying session ran for 60 minutes and was divided into four groups of five cars. Each group was determined by a lottery system and was permitted six minutes of on-track activity. All drivers were limited to two timed laps with one at maximum power. The fastest five overall competitors in the four groups participated in a "Super Pole" session with one driver on the track at any time going out in reverse order from fifth to first. Each of the five drivers was limited to one timed lap and the starting order was determined by the competitor's fastest times. The driver and team who recorded the fastest time were awarded three points towards their respective championships. Qualifying took place in dry and warm weather. In the first group of five runners, Vergne paced the session despite minor contact with a barrier lining the circuit, going four-tenths of a second faster than second-placed Duval. Andretti teammates Frijns and António Félix da Costa were third and fourth and Gasly was the group's slowest driver after hitting a concrete wall, damaging his suspension. D'Ambrosio set the second group's fastest lap time, three-tenths of a second faster than Heidfeld in second. Prost, Stéphane Sarrazin and Evans were group two's slowest three participants. In the third group, Abt was fastest with Lynn second. Piquet took third with Carroll fourth. Rosenqvist slid and went deep at the turn one hairpin, losing him two seconds of time and was the third group's slowest entrant.
Bird set the fastest overall lap at 1 minute, 2.806 seconds, going almost six-tenths of a second faster than Oliver Turvey in second. Di Grassi, Dillmann, and Maro Engel was the fourth group's slowest three drivers. Engel was affected by a problem which emerged before he could record a maximum power lap, forcing di Grassi to slow because yellow flags were waved. At the end of group qualifying, Bird, d'Ambrosio, Abt, Lynn and Vergne's lap times qualified them for super pole. In what was considered "a shock result" by the motorsport press, Lynn took the first pole position of his career, with a lap of 1 minute, 3.296 seconds in his first race meeting. He became the first driver to win the pole position in his debut Formula E race since Vergne at the 2014 Punta del Este ePrix. Lynn was joined on the grid's front row by Abt, who lost time in the final third of a lap. Abt was 0.003 seconds ahead of the third-place qualifier Vergne. Bird had an untidy lap that left him fourth as he could not match his teammate's pace with two errors at the track's hairpins. D'Ambrosio could not get his car into a qualifying setup, resulting in him locking his tires at turn six, and took fifth. The rest of the field lined up as Heidfeld, Piquet, Turvey, Prost, di Grassi, Sarrazin, Duval, Carroll, Evans, Dillmann, Frijns, Rosenqvist, Félix da Costa, Gasly and Engel.

Race

The first race began at 16:00 Eastern Daylight Time. The weather at the start was dry and sunny with the air temperature between and the track temperature ranged from. A special feature of Formula E is the "Fan Boost" feature, an additional of power to use in the driver's second car. The three drivers who were allowed to use the boost were determined by a fan vote. For the first New York race, Abt, di Grassi and Vergne were handed the extra power. When the race started, Lynn spun his tires, allowing Abt to overtake him at the turn one hairpin. Bird and di Grassi gained one position at the start; traffic delayed di Grassi at the hairpins, where multiple cars made contact but sustained no bodywork damage. Rosenqvist gained six positions by the end of the first lap while Prost lost nine places over the same distance because of car damage. Evans was required to switch into his second car because of a broken right front wheel, and d'Ambrosio entered the pit lane with left-corner front wing damage after contact with Piquet.
At the end of the first lap, Abt led from Lynn, who was followed in turn by, Bird, Vergne, Heidfeld, d'Ambrosio, Turvey, Sarrazin, Piquet, and di Grassi. Abt opted to conserve electrical energy, meaning he could not establish a large lead over both Virgin drivers. Lynn defended from teammate Bird but the latter grew frustrated over his manoeuvres. Bird was granted permission to pass Lynn at the second corner on lap nine. Heidfeld overtook Vergne for fourth place at the end of the same lap. Abt was struggling with his brakes; his team requested he focus on restoring electrical energy. Bird challenged Abt for the lead, attempting to pass him twice on lap 14 but was unsuccessful both times. Two laps later, Bird took the lead from Abt by aggressively turning to the inside of him at the turn five hairpin. Vergne and Heidfeld attacked Lynn who was struggling to manage his car's electrical energy. Heidfeld took advantage of a small gap left by Lynn to pass him for third into the turn two chicane on the 16th lap. Vergne passed Lynn for fourth place at the turn one hairpin on the next lap.
ran strongly to finish second in the first race.
Heidfeld placed pressure onto Abt but Vergne was drawing closer to him, allowing Abt to pull out a small gap over the pair. Vergne began his attack before the opening of the pit stop window and moved past Heidfeld at the turn two chicane for third on lap 18. Further down the field, Carroll and Félix da Costa battled each other and both cars made contact, littering the track with debris. On the 21st lap, Abt fell to third when he was passed by Vergne. The mandatory pit stops, during which all drivers need to change into a second car, began on the same lap when Lynn entered the pit lane after Vergne overtook him for sixth position. Bird and Vergne made their pit stops on the same lap, handing the lead back to Abt. Engel set the race's fastest lap on the same lap. His lap of 1 minute, 3.883 seconds earned him one point. Abt was on an alternative strategy, and led for one lap before relinquishing it to Bird. After the pit stops, Bird led Vergne by 2.2 seconds, with Abt five seconds behind Bird. Swift work from Sarrazin's pit crew promoted him to fourth, while Rosenqvist moved to sixth after starting from 17th position, though his teammate Heidfeld fell to eighth.
Lynn's race was curtailed on lap 25 when he stopped on track with a driveshaft failure. Di Grassi was separated by the two Mahindras of Rosenqvist and Heidfeld, and battled the former while also defending from the latter. Dillmann and Gasly overtook Carroll to move into the top ten on lap 29. As the lead group established themselves, attention focused on di Grassi's duel with Rosenqvist. Di Grassi was cautious as he attempted to find room to pass Rosenqvist, but kept pressuring him. On lap 33, Rosenqvist locked his tires turning into the turn two chicane, causing him to lose control of his car's rear, and drifted into the corner's exit barrier. His error promoted di Grassi into fifth place; the impact removed his rear wing, prompting race officials to display a black flag with an orange circle, requiring him to make a pit stop for repairs. After passing Dillmann, Gasly was in seventh position. Heidfeld's right-rear suspension collapsed after hitting the turn three inside kerb too hard on the 37th lap. He stopped on track, triggering the safety car's deployment, and reducing the time gaps within the field. Heidfeld pushed his car back to pit lane without assistance from marshals.
The safety car was withdrawn at the end of lap 41, and racing resumed with Bird leading Vergne and Abt. On the final lap, Abt slowed with a battery management system failure in the first turn, enabling Sarrazin to claim third place. As Abt attempted to rejoin, he almost hit teammate di Grassi, and stopped on track, preventing him from finishing. Vergne attempted to pass Bird by braking later than him on the lap, but could not overtake him and Bird maintained the lead to secure his first victory of the season, the fourth of his career, and his first since the 2016 Buenos Aires ePrix. He became the first driver to win a motor race in New York City. Vergne finished second, 1.3 seconds behind and his teammate Sarrazin took third. Di Grassi was fourth, Duval fifth and Turvey sixth. The two e.Dams-Renaults of Gasly and Prost were seventh and eighth. Frijns and Carroll rounded out the top ten. Piquet and Félix da Costa were in the next two positions. Problems dropped Dillmann to 13th. Abt and Rosenqvist were the final finishers. Evans, d'Ambrosio and Engel were the other three drivers not to finish the race. There were two lead changes during the race; two drivers reached the front of the field. Bird led twice for a total of 27 laps, out of 43.

Post-race

The top three drivers appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and spoke to the media in a later press conference. Bird was delighted with the victory, calling his achievement "incredible" and congratulated Formula E for organising the event: "I can imagine how difficult it was, but it’s been an amazing week so far. We had pretty good speed today." He said both Berlin races were "a turning point" for his team as they had been extensively educated on their performance and praised his teammate Lynn for taking the pole position. Vergne was pleased to finish second but claimed his getaway off the grid prevented him from winning the race as there was a large amount of dirt off the racing line, causing him to lose positions. However, he was aware he could reclaim ground in the ePrix's opening phase, and increased his pace to conserve more electrical energy than Bird but felt the latter deserved the victory. Sarrazin said he felt "very good" to finish third, and despite making a small error in qualifying, he felt "lucky" because of Abt's final lap problem.
Following battery re-generation problems on his car leaving him unable to finish the event after having led the first 16 laps, Abt spoke of his annoyance and revealed he had some issues with his first car: adding "But still we were in a position to at least take a podium here which would have been good points. Still good, and then last lap my car shuts off with a battery failure or whatever. It’s annoying." He was also disappointed over losing the possibility of finishing on the podium, but said it was continually satisfying to compete at the front of the pack; however he claimed to feel more satisfied to be the first driver to finish the race: "I don’t know why this always happens to me, so many times. It’s just really annoying because in the end people forget what happened."
The result reduced Buemi's Drivers' Championship to 20 points by di Grassi finishing fourth. Rosenqvist remained in third position on 86 points, but his advantage over Prost in fourth place had decreased to ten points. Bird's victory moved him from eighth to fifth. e.Dams-Renault still led the Teams' Championship on 239 points, although their lead over Audi Sport ABT had been narrowed slightly by two points. Mahindra maintained third place on 149 points. Virgin consolidated fourth position with 125 points, and Techeetah further extended their advantage over NextEV for fifth with three races left in the season.

Standings after the race

Bold text indicates who still had a theoretical chance of becoming Champion.

;Drivers' Championship standings

+/–		Driver	Points
	1	Sébastien Buemi	157
	2	Lucas di Grassi	137
	3	Felix Rosenqvist	86
	4	Nico Prost	76
3	5	Sam Bird	63

;Teams' Championship standings

+/–		Team	Points
	1	e.Dams-Renault	239
	2	Audi Sport ABT	183
	3	Mahindra	149
	4	Virgin-Citroën	125
	5	Techeetah-Renault	90

Notes: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.
Race two