Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler's Lucas di Grassi stormed to a dominant win in what was a chaotic inaugural Zurich E-Prix in Switzerland.
Di Grassi qualified in sixth place for the tenth round of Season Four after narrowly missing out on a spot in the top five Super Pole shootout while Jaguar Racing's Mitch Evans took a maiden pole position for both himself and his team.
When the lights went out for the historic 39-lap event, di Grassi immediately jumped into fifth place, overtaking Dragon Racing's Jose Maria Lopez while Evans led Andre Lotterer, Sam Bird and Jerome d'Ambrosio around the Zurich Street Circuit.
After clearing d'Ambrosio for fourth, di Grassi quickly found a way past Bird for third and Lotterer for second, later closing up on and passing race leader Evans who was told by Jaguar to stick to his targets while managing his usable energy.
Following an accident for Felix Rosenqvist on lap 17, the full course yellow was quickly deployed on lap 19 and di Grassi led the field in for Formula E's mandatory mid-race car switch.
It was in this moment that a decisive moment happened in the race, with Evans, Lotterer, Sebastien Buemi, Lopez and Jean-Eric Vergne all being handed drive-through penalties for over speeding under during the full course yellow period.
This penalty, which saw five of the race's top 10 runners penalised, shook up the field, promoting Bird up to second and d'Ambrosio up to third while di Grassi maintained his lead out in front, unaffected by the chaos.
On lap 39, di Grassi took the chequered flag to secure his first victory of Season Four – a campaign that started in dreadful circumstances for the reigning champion, failing to score any points in the first four rounds of the year while another victory marks for Audi marks the team's third of the year.
Bird, who finished in second after starting in third, bolstered his position in the Drivers' Championship, taking 18 points away from the weekend.
With Vergne finishing in 10th place, courtesy of the drive-through, the Frenchman's lead has been slashed to 23 points with two races remaining and 58 points still available.
D'Ambrosio's third place saw the Belgian take 15 points away from the weekend with his previous best result this season being seventh place at the Rome E-Prix.
Andre Lotterer narrowly missed out on the podium for Techeetah, finishing in fourth place with the fastest lap while Buemi finished in fifth place in front of his home crowd.
Nick Heidfeld was the highest finishing Mahindra in sixth and was followed by polesitter Evans who crossed the line in seventh for Jaguar, taking nine points from the weekend.
It was a return to the points for MS&AD Andretti Formula E, courtesy of eighth place for Antonio Felix da Costa while Oliver Turvey drove a strong recovery drive for NIO, finishing in ninth place after starting in 20th. Vergne completed the top 10.
Outside of the points-paying positions, Lopez finished in 12th place, crashing his Dragon machine in Turn 1 in the closing stages of the race while Daniel Abt was unable to continue his performances from Berlin, finishing in 13th place after being hit by Nelson Piquet Jr on lap 1.
Rosenqvist finished in 15th following his accident on lap 17 while Alex Lynn was the last classified finisher in the race for DS Virgin Racing, one lap down in 16th.
Nico Prost, Luca Filippi, Piquet and Edoardo Mortara failed to see the chequered flag.
Formula E will return for the New York Cit E-Prix on July 14th and 15th where a new champion will be crowned.
