Kristofferson and Taylor made it back to back victories. The final was red flagged after 2 separate crashes.
At the start the field split in 2. Molly Taylor held the inside line with Cristina Gutiérrez alongside. Into turn one the pair made contact with the X44 car being pushed wide and out of the race with damage. Behind, Stéphane Sarrazin and Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky made contact with the right rear wheel of the JBXE car being broken. Both of the injured cars were stuck on circuit. Taylor held the lead all of the way back to the driver swap. Just as the cars pulled into the pit area the race was red flagged.
The race was restarted for a 1 lap shootout. The pair made contact out of turn 1 but Johan Kristofferson took the lead. He stayed clear throughout the lap with Jamie Chadwick dropping 15 seconds back by the end of the lap. It means Rosberg X Racing have won the 2 opening rounds of the inaugural Extreme E season. They lead the points table ahead of Sébastien Loeb and Cristina Gutiérrez in the X44 car. Timmy Hansen was unable to race in the final. The Swede and brother of Timmy replaced Jenson Button for the Ocean X-Prix.
Semi-Finals
Kristofferson and Taylor recovered from a poor start of their semi-final to win. The triple WRX champion was last on the run to turn 1 and took a wide line into the corner. Loeb looked to defend second place but was cut back by Kristofferson and dropped to last. Out front Mattias Ekstrom held a nearly 2 second lead through the race.
Drama occured when Jutta Kleinschmidt for Abt Cupra couldn’t get going after the driver swap. It undid all of Ekstrom’s work. Taylor now took the lead and made the most of it. She held an advantage throughout the race to win. Cristina Gutiérrez was able to keep Kleinschmidt behind. The German racer was called in to replace regular Abt Cupra driver Claudia Hürtgen. Hürtgen had suffered an illness over the weekend. After completing shakedown she was replaced by the championship’s reserve driver. It is the first time a reserve driver has been used with Timo Scheider still on the sidelines after both rounds.
In the other semi-final Kevin Hansen made the best start and extended his lead to over 20 seconds before the change over. Åhlin-Kottulinsky took over the car and comfortably won to make the final. Oliver Bennett was in third after the first sequence of corners. He put pressure on Chadwick and made a pass late in the lap. The pair made contact but both survived the first lap. On lap 2 Sarrazin set about chasing Christine GZ. He closed in and made a pass to take the last transfer spot. It looked like he had 2nd place secured until a mistake with 4 corners to go. Sarrazin slowed and Christine made side-to-side contact. Battling through the next corner the positions remained static with Xite Energy Racing eliminated from the event.
Shootout
Timmy Hansen made the best start after utilizing his Hyperdrive early. On the long run to turn 1 Carlos Sainz then used his Hyperboost to closed enough to drive up the inside into turn 1. The pair went side-by-side with Sainz taking the lead. Hansen was busy defending from Sara Price and they dropped back from Sainz. Price tried to overtake in the penultimate corner. The track narrowed and the cars made contact. Timmy was able to keep the inside line and made it to the switch zone first.
Kyle LeDuc set about chasing for victory, having dropped back after the driver change. He immediately closed on Katie Munnings. 3 quarters of the way into the lap he got the cutback out of a corner. He then leaped and bounded over the next series of mounds. It didn’t take long to close on Laia Sanz. Late in the lap he took an alternate route between gates and got ahead. Munnings was next on the back of Sanz. The female pair battled to the line with Sanz holding onto second place.
It gave Chip Ganassi pairing 7th place overall with Andretti United and Acciona Sainz team 8th and 9th respectively.
Qualifying
Team X44 pairing of Loeb and Gutiérrez topped qualifying once again. They went fastest in the first run and backed up their pace top stay 1st overall. Rosberg X Racing came home in second as most car avoided issues. Three teams stopped on track which relegated them to the bottom of the standings. In Q1 Sainz stopped on the second lap and wasn’t able to get going. Timmy Hansen also stopped with a technical issue. He was able to restart the car but propped up the timings going into the second session.
In that next session Kyle LeDuc was forced to stop for 3 minutes. A loose tree branch had snagged the rear bodywork which set off an emergency stop. He was able to fix the car but eliminated them down in 8th overall. The 6 teams that escaped any issues all qualified for the 3 car semi-finals.
Feature Image Credit: Extreme E
