The 2018 Paris ePrix (formally the 2018 Qatar Airways Paris E-Prix) was a Formula E electric car race held before a crowd of 48,000 spectators at the Circuit des Invalides in the Les Invalides building complex on 28 April 2018. It was the eighth race of the 2017–18 Formula E Championship and the third Paris ePrix. The 49-lap race was won by Techeetah driver Jean-Éric Vergne from pole position. Audi's Lucas di Grassi finished second and Virgin driver Sam Bird was third.
Vergne won the pole position by recording the fastest lap in qualifying and maintained the lead for the next 23 laps as Bird had more electrical energy available. This allowed Bird to shorten Vergne's lead and unsuccessfully tried to overtake him. Through the pit stop phase to get into a second car, di Grassi took the lead for two laps after conserving electrical energy. Edoardo Mortara led the following lap before Vergne retook the position after the pit stops. Vergne was unchallenged for the final third of the race and took his third victory of the season after his teammate André Lotterer battled Bird and di Grassi.
The consequence of the race extended Vergne's Drivers' Championship lead over Bird to 31 points and Felix Rosenqvist kept third despite placing eighth. Sébastien Buemi kept fourth position while di Grassi moved him from eighth to fifth. In the Teams' Championship, Techeetah increased their advantage over Virgin from 34 to 55 points. Audi overtook Mahindra for third with four races left in the season.
Background
The 2018 Paris ePrix was confirmed as part of Formula E's 2017–18 schedule in September 2017 by the FIA World Motor Sport Council. It was the eighth of twelve scheduled single-seater electric car races of the 2017–18 Championship, and the third edition of the event. The ePrix was held at the 14-turn clockwise Circuit des Invalides in the Les Invalides building complex of the city's 7th arrondissement on 28 April 2018. It was switched from May to April because organisers wanted less traffic in the area owing to the 2017 race being held outside the French school holidays. Construction of the circuit took around six days with workers using of material shipped to the Port Gros-Caillou. Additionally, of road was resurfaced to make it smoother. Organisers of the race expected around 50,000 people in attendance.
Going into the race, Techeetah driver Jean-Éric Vergne led the Drivers' Championship with 119 points. Sam Bird of Virgin followed in second place with 101 points and Mahindra's Felix Rosenqvist was third with 82 points. Sébastien Buemi of the e.Dams-Renault team was fourth with 60 points and Audi driver Daniel Abt was fifth with 50 points scored. Techeetah led the Teams' Championship with 152 points; Virgin were second with 118 points and Mahindra were 15 points behind in third. Audi in fourth and Jaguar in fifth were separated by one point.
Bird had won the preceding Rome ePrix two weeks prior and narrowed Vergne's championship lead to 18 points. He spoke of his team's belief they were closer than they had been in the title contest and aimed to capitalise on their current situation, adding that "I won last time out so I'm feeling good. It's getting to crunch time now in the championship and thankfully I'm there and fighting for the world title this year." Vergne did not finish the 2017 event due to a suspension failure and spent a week testing in Techeetah's simulator with his mechanics and looked forward to driving in Paris, saying that "Having grown up in Paris, this race is extra special for me. I'm really looking forward to racing now and to meet all the French fans that have been an incredible support so far this season." Lucas di Grassi (Audi), the 2016 Paris ePrix winner, was stimulated to keep getting podium finishes and took a plethora of momentum from Rome, adding that "Now we need to perfectly nail everything down."
A total of 20 drivers represented ten squads of two drivers each for the ePrix. There was one change of driver heading into the event. Having been in one of the NIO cars since the season-opening Hong Kong ePrix double header, Luca Filippi was dropped for the race and replaced by the team's reserve and simulation driver Ma Qinghua. The change was necessitated following Filippi's poor performances over the season compared to teammate Oliver Turvey and the lack of significant results and internal pressure was applied to allow a Chinese driver to race once during the campaign. This caused Ma to miss the FIA World Rallycross Championship round at Montalegre.
Practice
Two practice sessions—both on Saturday morning—were held before the late afternoon race. The first session ran for 45 minutes and the second lasted half an hour. An untimed half hour shakedown session was held late Friday afternoon to allow teams to check the reliability of their cars and electronic systems. Bird set the fastest lap late in the first practice session at 1 minute, 1.698 seconds, followed by di Grassi, Abt, Mitch Evans (Jaguar), Vergne, Alex Lynn (Virgin), José María López (Dragon), António Félix da Costa (Andretti), Jérôme d'Ambrosio (Dragon) and André Lotterer (Techeetah). Two red flags were necessitated in a session where several drivers went off the track: Nelson Piquet Jr. (Jaguar) lost control of his car heading onto the start/finish straight, and deranged his front-right suspension by striking the turn 14 barrier 15 minutes in. Though Piquet was unhurt, the session was stopped for ten minutes and the safety car returned him to the pit lane as his car was moved. The second stoppage came with 15 minutes left when Rosenqvist struck the kerb at turn 12, and lost control of his vehicle's rear by going airborne. He oversteered into an outside exit wall and broke his front-left suspension. Di Grassi used of power to set the fastest lap at the end of second practice at 1 minute, 0.881 seconds, a tenth of a second ahead of Vergne. Positions three through ten were filled by Evans, Rosenqvist, Abt, Turvey, Bird, Piquet, Buemi and Lotterer. Though the session passed relatively smoothly, Piquet crashed for a second time by locking his tyres, losing control of his second car, and bent his front-left tyre in a collision at the long-right turn five barrier, stopping the session for about five minutes.
Qualifying Saturday's afternoon qualifying session ran for an hour 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 for the ePrix was determined by the competitor's fastest times (Super Pole from first to fifth, and group qualifying from sixth to twentieth). The driver and team who recorded the fastest time were awarded three points towards their respective championships.
In the first group of five competitors, which had nobody venture onto the dusty track until midway through the session, Vergne set the fastest lap time of any driver in group qualifying at 1 minute, 1.508 seconds. Bird was close behind in second with Buemi third. Rosenqvist and Abt had weak attempts that left him more than half a second slower than Vergne and completed the first group's drivers. Lotterer led the second group in which traffic was expected to impede others less often and the track conditions were expected to improve but this proved not to be the case due to dust and debris accumulation. Second to fourth places were taken by di Grassi, Turvey and Evans. Piquet did not partake in qualifying because his two cars were being re-built after his two crashes in practice. Jaguar contravened series regulations which obliges teams to send their cars to parc fermé five minutes before qualifying. The stewards later granted Piquet dispensation to start the ePrix. In group three, Félix da Costa was fastest by setting a quick second sector and was followed by López in second. Nick Heidfeld (Mahindra) delayed his lap for as long as possible but he lost time in the final third of a lap and came third. Lynn and Edoardo Mortara (Venturi) struggled on the bumpy track and were the third group's slowest two competitors.
All five drivers of the fourth group ventured onto the track as soon as it commenced and had Maro Engel (Venturi) record the fastest lap in spite his first two sector times being off the pace of the fastest overall runners and stopped di Grassi from entering super pole. D'Ambrosio out-qualified teammate López for the first time in the season and was second-quickest in group four. Tom Blomqvist (Andretti), Nico Prost (e.Dams-Renault) and Ma were group four's slowest three drivers. At the end of the group stages, Vergne, Félix da Costa, Engel, Bird and Lotterer's lap times progressed them to super pole. Vergne (fined €1,000 for pit lane over-speeding during qualifying) was the last driver to set a lap and recorded overall best times to earn his fourth pole position of the season with a 1-minute, 1.144 seconds lap. He was joined on the grid's front row by Bird who held the pole until Vergne's lap in spite of glancing a wall on his try. Lotterer attained his highest qualifying start in Formula E at the time with third after locking his tyres entering turn three. In his second super pole appearance, Engel also had his best career qualifying effort in fourth after losing momentum in the final sector. Fifth-placed Félix da Costa locked his tyres and ran wide at the exit of the third corner to not be in contention for pole position. After qualifying, Evans changed the gearbox in one of his cars and dropped ten places because he had taken up his "joker" change in Punta del Este. However, he could not serve the full penalty and was penalised five seconds during the mandatory change into his second car. Mortara incurred a three-place grid penalty for exceeding the speed limit under red flag conditions in the second practice session. The rest of the grid lined up after penalties as di Grassi, d'Ambrosio, Buemi, Turvey, López, Rosenqvist, Heidfeld, Prost, Abt, Lynn, Blomqvist, Ma, Piquet, Mortara and Evans.
Qualifying classification +Final qualifying classification Driver Team 1 25 Jean-Éric Vergne Techeetah-Renault 1:01.144 1 2 2 Sam Bird Virgin-Citroën 1:01.421 2 3 18 André Lotterer Techeetah-Renault 1:01.487 3 4 5 Maro Engel Venturi 1:01.541 4 5 28 António Félix da Costa Andretti-BMW 1:02.805 5 6 1 Lucas di Grassi Audi 6 7 7 Jérôme d'Ambrosio Dragon-Penske 7 8 9 Sébastien Buemi e.Dams-Renault 8 9 16 Oliver Turvey NIO 9 10 6 José María López Dragon-Penske 10 11 19 Felix Rosenqvist Mahindra 11 12 23 Nick Heidfeld Mahindra 12 13 8 Nico Prost e.Dams-Renault 13 14 20 Mitch Evans Jaguar 20 15 66 Daniel Abt Audi 14 16 36 Alex Lynn Virgin-Citroën 15 17 27 Tom Blomqvist Andretti-BMW 16 18 4 Edoardo Mortara Venturi 19 19 68 Ma Qinghua NIO 17 20 3 Nelson Piquet Jr. Jaguar 18Source: Notes: — Mitch Evans dropped ten places for changing his gearbox in one of his cars. — Edoardo Mortara was demoted three positions for speeding under red flag conditions during second practice.
Race