Jean-Eric Vergne held off Mitch Evans to take victory at a thrilling inaugural Bern E-Prix, taking his third win of the season in the Swiss capital to extend his lead in the Drivers' Championship.
Securing pole position in qualifying, Vergne led from lights to flag, facing a constant threat throughout the 45-minute + 1 lap race.
Securing a perfect getaway from pole position, Vergne led into the first corner from Evans and Sebastien Buemi while behind, carnage ensued, with Pascal Wehrlein spinning to block the field while Robin Frijns was spun by Jerome d'Ambrosio, with this incident resulting in a subsequent red flag,
On the race restart, Vergne again remained out in front with Evans close behind, the Kiwi arming and deploying Attack Mode with 26-minutes + 1 lap of racing remaining in an attempt to clear the reigning champion.
Failing to overtake, Vergne armed and deployed the device to defend from the hard-charging Jaguar driver, with this resulting in a stalemate, with both drivers running at 225kW for four minutes.
As the battle for the lead calmed, it reignited with 17-minutes + 1 lap to go, with Evans again deploying Attack Mode in an attempt to overtake, coming close in Turn 3 although Vergne held on, again using Attack Mode one lap later.
As the race began to wind down, a threat of rain manifested, with a sudden downpour in the dying stages of the race resulting in further unpredictability.
Finding the perfect balance out on track, Vergne held off Evans to claim his third win of the season and a third consecutive podium finish, with the Kiwi taking second only 0.160s adrift of the Frenchman.
After starting from third place, Buemi stood on the final step of the podium for Nissan e.dams, holding off an early challenge from Sam Bird and coming out on top in late battle with Andre Lotterer who took fourth in the second DS Techeetah car.
Bird, after starting in sixth, finished in fifth, with the driver losing fourth place with only four minutes of racing remaining after locking up into Turn 7.
Maximilian Gunther once again impressed for GEOX Dragon, the 21-year-old taking sixth place for the American outfit while Daniel Abt was the highest placed works Audi driver, finishing in seventh.
Fighting from 10th on the grid, Alex Lynn secured eighth place in the second Jaguar I-TYPE 3 while Felipe Massa took ninth for Venturi. Lucas di Grassi completed the top 10 in the second Audi, scoring only one point.
Outside of the top 10, Stoffel Vandoorne narrowly missed out on points for HWA Racelab by finishing in 11th while it was a point-less race for Antonio Felix da Costa, the Portuguese racer finishing in 12th.
Jose Maria Lopez followed da Costa in 13th while Alexander Sims and Jerome d'Ambrosio completed the top 15.
Tom Dillmann, Oliver Turvey and Gary Paffett completed the field as the final classified finishers.
Oliver Rowland, Pascal Wehrlein, Edoardo Mortara and Robin Frijns failed to see the chequered flag, with the latter Dutchman retiring from damage sustained on lap 1.
Formula E's fifth season of competition will come to a close on the weekend of July 13 and 14 with a double-header round in New York City.
