It was another hit and miss weekend for Goodmayes-based Alex Lynn in Rome.
He may have got the ball rolling after adding some points to his name, but it wasn’t a strong weekend for him due to an unfortunate penalty and weak starting positions on the grid as a result.
Lynn was unable to follow up with his strong qualifying performances of the Diriyah ePrix double header, where he qualified fifth and ninth respectively.
In the qualifying session for race one, he was unable to break into the top-10 and only had the 13th fastest lap.
The first race of the weekend started behind the safety car due to the wet conditions on track. It took five minutes before the safety car went in, finally unleashing the field.
The race was marred with different collisions.
A Lively Encounter
It proved to be a race to forget for pole sitter Stoffel Vandoorne. Firstly, he and Andre Lotterer had a coming together with Lotterer getting stuck in the wall, forcing him to retire.
Vandoorne also got caught up with his Mercedes-EQ teammate, Nyck De Vries towards the dying stages of the race.
Vandoorne had been trying to miss the slowing car of Lucas Di Grassi, who had an abrupt power failure, and clipped a manhole cover. Vandoorne lost control of his car and De Vries couldn’t avoid his teammate, crashing into the side of him and spinning him backwards into the barrier. Both cars had to retire.
In total, there were seven retirements in a very lively encounter. Lynn’s Mahindra Racing teammate Alexander Sims was one of the retirees due to a machinal issue.
Jean-Eric Vergne was the outright winner, with Jaguar Racing teammates Sam Bird and Mitch Evans coming second and third respectively.
Lynn had a fairly quiet race, avoiding the multiple incidents on track and slowly climbing his way into the points. He finished eighth overall, adding four points to his championship tally.
Marred By The Safety Car
The second qualifying session of the weekend saw Lynn fall even further down the pack after his strong performance in Saturday’s race. Lynn qualified in 16th, with his teammate Sims making the Super Pole shootout and taking sixth.
The race was started behind the safety car due to wet track conditions, just like the day before.
Race leader Nick Cassidy saw his first-place slip through his fingers when he locked up at Turn seven, before resuming the race in 11th.
A shunt for Rene Rast brought out the safety car with five minutes left on the clock. He lost control of his car and crashed into the barrier, unable to continue the race.
The safety car went back in with just one lap left. In a last lap dash to the finish line, Sam Bird, De Vries and Oliver Rowland all entangled, leaving Lynn to sneak through into the points-paying positions.
Amongst all the chaos, Lynn crossed the line in ninth place. However, he was given a 30-second time penalty for not using his final attack mode, with the final few laps being marred by the safety car. He was classified as 17th, losing his double points finish.
Teammate Sims took all the glory, finishing in second place, the first podium for Mahindra Racing since the 2019 Santiago ePrix.
The race was won by Vandoorne with Pascal Wehrlein being promoted to third after original podium finisher, Norman Nato was disqualified for overuse of energy.
‘We’ve Got Good Performance’
Speaking on the Mahindra Racing website, Lynn said: “It’s been a bit of a weekend of what could have been. We scored good points from a medium qualifying on Saturday. On Sunday qualifying again wasn’t where we wanted it to be, but we were able to come back through to finish P9 on the road.
“Unfortunately, we got an end of race penalty for not taking all of our attack modes when a last minute safety car scuppered our chances. In terms of race pace, we’ve got good performance, so for Valencia we need to understand our qualifying pace a bit more.
“As Alexander showed today, and as we showed collectively in Riyadh, when we qualify up the front it stays there very nicely. Overall, a big well done to Simsy for his podium, I think it’s great for the whole team and it’s going to push us on to Valencia.”
The results of this weekend now leave Lynn in 20th overall in the drivers’ championship.
Next up is another double-header at Valencia for the Valencia ePrix, over the weekend of the 24th and 25th April.
