Renault e.dams driver Sébastien Buemi extended his championship lead with victory in the second Berlin ePrix race, despite Felix Rosenqvist finishing first on the road.
Mahindra driver Rosenqvist started on pole position and led Buemi throughout the 46-lap event, the longest in Formula E history so far.
Buemi kept Rosenqvist in his sights and the gap rarely flickered over the two-second mark, but a 10-second time penalty dropped the leading Mahindra to second in the final results.
This was after an unsafe release during the mid-race pitstops and car swap phase, when Rosenqvist’s car departed his garage just as his team-mate Nick Heidfeld pulled into his box.
The two Mahindra cars narrowly avoided contact, but the stewards deemed it was an unsafe release and handed Rosenqvist a time penalty – so Buemi moved ahead at the chequered flag.
With Buemi victorious, bouncing back from his race one exclusion, he increased his lead in the drivers’ standings. Rosenqvist dropped to second with his penalty, backing up his race one win.
Buemi’s title rival Lucasi di Grassi rallied from seventh to third after making progress up the order in the second stint, with his team-mate Daniel Abt following him through in fourth.
José María López escaped a brush with team-mate Sam Bird to claim fifth, with a late pass on Jean-Éric Vergne – the Techeetah driver was third earlier in the race, but slipped to sixth.
Bird lost ground after running wide while battling with Lopez and was seventh, with Nicolas Prost in eighth and Oliver Turvey ninth.
Heidfeld came from 20th to 10th, scoring the final point after Faraday Future Dragon Racing’s Jérôme d'Ambrosio served a drive-through for breaching the minimum pitstop time.
