With the season entering its final phase, the eV grid lined up in Marrakesh with plenty on the line. Brock Kidd starts on pole as he looks to close in further on Oleksandr Zozulya for the championship lead. Felipe Cesar lines up 2nd as he also looks to try and get himself back into the title fight, while the two Jaguars start slightly further behind as they look to recover and preserve the team’s title lead. As he has done on many occasions, Kidd had a good start from P1 and held the lead into the tight turn 1. Cesar held onto second while Will Taylor and Zozulya both made up a place each, passing Kip Maxwell and Ryota Yoshida, respectively. The tight nature of the first few corners saw little overtakes, but further on Steven Kasami moved into 7th with a neat pass on Aron Einarrson at turn 4. At the back there was drama as Luis Santos, starting 19th, spun at the end of lap 1. As he recovered onto the track, he got into the way of teammate Niklas Kehlmann who went off trying to avoid the recovering car and hit the barriers, becoming the first retiree. Back at the front, Kidd and Cesar took off like rockets after the first lap, leaving Taylor to hold up Maxwell. The Downton got frustrated after a few laps and tried a rash move into the final corner, causing both to go wide and allow the two cars behind (Zozulya and Yoshida) to slip past.
Annoyed by this, Taylor got his head down and began to lap faster, catching back up to Zozulya and Yoshida. He nailed the Maserati at turn 9 with a bold move, before slipstreaming past Zozulya on the run down to turn 4, to move back up into 3rd. As he was passed, Zozulya ended up locking his front tyres at the corner – he just about missed Taylor’s car by inches. Thanks to some runoff on the exit of the corner he managed to recover to the track, but he dropped behind Yoshida and Maxwell in the process. Einarsson joined Kehlmann on the sidelines with a sudden loss of power, which dropped him out of the race from 8th. His place was taken by Jochem van Snelheid, who had started 12th, but thanks to some brave manoeuvres, passed Rodrigo Sanchez, Ivan Lesic and Sebastian Bergkvist within 7 laps. Taylor, like the top 2, pulled away fairly rapidly from the rest of the pack, leaving Yoshida, Maxwell and Zozulya to have their own battle. Yoshida appeared to be the slowest of the three, but with track position, he proved to be difficult to pass. Maxwell spent 13 laps glued to the Japanese driver’s rear but couldn’t overtake him. However, with the championship on the line, Zozulya had the bit between his teeth. A bold late move on Maxwell at turn 6 saw him move up into 5th and put him in prime position to challenge Yoshida. Behind these three, Alexander McLaughlin, who had recovered well from his starting place of 13th to move into the top ten, went off at the turn 12 chicane and hit the wall, leaving him with only his second retirement this season. In the final quarter of the race, Kasami, who until now had a quiet but great race, caught up to Maxwell. Zozulya continuously hounded Yoshida and eventually the latter made a mistake, locking up into turn 1. Kasami dived past Maxwell at the same time, and as all three drivers passed Yoshida, the Arrow driver tucked into Zozulya’s slipstream and squeezed past into 4th at turn 4, to make up 3 places in about 500m with some brilliant driving. None of this fazed Kidd, who ended up lapping everyone up until 10th and won, taking the fastest lap as well as he became the first driver to score a perfect 29 points in a weekend. Cesar and Taylor completed the podium ahead of an overjoyed Kasami, Zozulya, Maxwell and a furious Yoshida. Van Snelheid drove well for 8th, Bergkvist continued to collect useful points in 9th and Lesic took the final points paying position. This makes a big difference in the championship standings: Kidd now retakes the lead, 2 points ahead of Zozulya with 3 races left. Cesar still lags 27 points off the title lead, requiring a poor race for both of the top 2 drivers if he wants to be in contention for the championship. Taylor passes Maxwell for 4th, but both drivers’ title aspirations are looking very bleak. Kasami also moves up to 11th, just 4 points off van Snelheid in 10th. In the teams’ standings, it’s tighter than ever as Downton close the gap between them and Jaguar to just 2 points. Porsche are now 1 point behind Mitsubishi, who themselves remain 5 points off Renault.
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