With the sun out over Albert Park, a historic event took place as the first ever eVirtual race took place, with 24 drivers in fully electric cars fighting it out over the course of 29 laps on the famous Melbourne street circuit. After his pole lap yesterday, Felipe Cesar starts on pole for Maserati ahead of Alexander McLaughlin, who impressed with second. Despite his heroics yesterday, it was a poor start from Cesar, and by turn 1 McLaughlin had the inside line along with the lead. It looked like the Brazilian would be under pressure from Stuart Harrison as they headed towards turn 3, but he pulled off an ambitious late move on the New Zealander to reclaim the lead. Behind them the top 10 held station, as the tight circuit proved difficult to pass on, but as the drivers got into a grove they began to make some moves – Aron Einarsson in particular seemed to be confident on the brakes. He pressurised Steffen Rosenberg into an error, the German running wide at turn 9 and losing two places, before completing two textbook overtakes on Jochem van Snelheid and Will Taylor. Further back, Oleksandr Zozulya and Otso Toivonen made up 3 places from their lowly positions in the opening laps while Rodrigo Sanchez slipped back 4 places, as he struggled with understeer. Steven Kasami was the first retiree, when his car suddenly died on lap 5.
Cesar began to make a bit of a buffer to McLaughlin, who now found himself under pressure from Harrison. The American was all over the rear of the Mitsubishi but couldn’t get past and began to drop back. Brock Kidd, who had been surprisingly quiet until then, overtook his countryman at the penultimate corner and Harrison began to drop back further, Taylor and Einarsson easing past him, the former having repassed the latter earlier. He wasn’t the only one struggling however, as van Snelheid had a dramatic 360 spin at turn 5 after putting two wheels on the grass. Somehow, he didn’t tag the barriers and was able to continue, having lost three places. Zozulya continued his charge up the field, moving to 12th by half distance, helped by Kip Maxwell crashing out. The former FV driver got a wallop of oversteer out of the final corner and hit the barrier with the rear axle. He pulled off safely at turn 1, with his car recovered without a safety car. With the gaps between the top 3 remaining stable, the focus was on the fight behind them. Harrison managed to steady his pace and try to pressurise Einarsson, but a late move at turn 13 saw him lock up and go off into the gravel, taking the Icelander with him. They both recovered to the track, but it allowed Ryota Yoshida and van Snelheid to pass them. Van Snelheid in particular was driving like a man possessed – after his spin, he repassed Ivan Lesic (who’s brakes began to fade, forcing him to retire), slipstreamed past Rosenberg and closed right up on Yoshida after the Harrison/Einarsson incident. Lesic’s retirement promoted Zozulya into the top 10, the Jaguar having passed Sebastian Bergkvist. He went on to pull off a stunning move on Rosenberg into turn 9. Further back, Luiz Santos had a spin, just as Cesar came up to lap him. The Brazilian darted left and avoided the backmarker by centimetres but had to go off-track. McLaughlin needed no more offers and flashed past to take the lead with 8 laps left. Cesar looked to immediately go on the attack but had to hold back as Luke Stokey had stopped by the side of the track with a broken driveshaft and brought out yellow flags briefly. As the race neared its conclusion, van Snelheid threw away all his hard work by repeating the same error he made before, losing 3 places again. There were contrasting fortunes for Harrison though, who got his act together and did two good moves on Einarsson at turn 3 and Yoshida at turn 15 to recover to 5th. Behind them, having spent most of the race in 11th, Bergkvist finally got into the points with a late pass on Rosenberg. Up front, Cesar clearly had more pace than McLaughlin, but the latter put up a stout defence. Then, with just 3 laps left, McLaughlin ran slightly wide through the 9-10 chicane. Cesar pulled along to the inside and forced his rival to back down into the fast chicane and hand the lead back to the Maserati. From there on Cesar kept the lead and took a well-earned victory, ahead of a disappointed McLaughlin. Kidd had a quiet race with 3rd, along with the fastest lap that he had earned earlier on. Jaguar were delighted with Taylor taking 4th ahead of Harrison who could see this as damage limitation. Yoshida made it two Maserati’s in the top 6, while Einarsson and JVS were 7th and 9th respectively after their dramatic races. They were split by Zozulya, who’s great recovery drive saw him salvage 4 points. Bergkvist took the last point, beating Rosenberg who would rue that early error. Toivonen, Sanchez, Judson Sikes and Hitoshi Katayama rounded out the top 15, while Olen Inman had a horrible race which he spent trundling around well out of the points. Santos was 17th after his near race defining spin, ahead of Refugio Boyer and Niklas Kehlmann who spent the full race at the back. Robert Stefansson crashed on the last lap to join the list of retirees.
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