Sergio Jimenez took a fourth victory in the 2019/20 Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY season, emerging at the front of a slow-burning strategic fight in Berlin.
The reigning champion of the series and current leader of the Pro Drivers’ Standings started the 25-minute + 1 lap affair from pole position and maintained his lead over the first half.
With the top five running in-formation, there was very little give at the front of the field in the opening stages, however, with only six minutes of racing remaining, Nick Foster rolled the dice by deploying Attack Mode.
This action created a nail-biting strategic battle, as the field carefully used each activation of the power boost device to fight to the front.
When Jimenez activated Attack Mode five-minutes from the end, Foster inherited the lead, however, this swiftly changed when the Australian later missed his second use by running deep into the zone on the outside of Turn 5.
Through this error, Jimenez was the driver with the benefit as the Brazilian once more gained the lead, pulling away as Foster scrapped with Caca Bueno who was driving the second Jaguar Brazil car.
The pair came to blows in this fight in Turn 10 – an incident which saw Foster come out worse as he started to lose time rapidly.
Jimenez took the eventual win by 2.164s ahead of team-mate Bueno while Simon Evans – who lost time after also missing Attack Mode – completed the podium for Team Asia New Zealand.
A final lap collision between Foster and Alice Powell allowed rookie Gregory Segers to finish in a personal best fourth spot while the Brit behind recovered to complete the top five, despite spinning on the exit of Turn 9.
Behind, Fahad Algosaibi won in Pro-Am with sixth overall ahead of Takuma Aoki and Abbie Eaton who returned to the Jaguar VIP hot seat after last racing in November’s Diriyah race.
Paul Spooner and Adalberto Baptista completed the field, with Foster failing to see the chequered flag after stopping in Turn 10 on the final lap, bringing about an end to what was a messy race.
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