Kevin Siggy/Stoffel Vandoorne take virtual victories in wild races of the At Home Series at virtual New York

With just two-races left to go, the FIA ABB Formula E Series continued their Race At Home Series on Saturday, by competing at the virtual New York for Round No. 6 of 8.

Both the Challenge Series and the Driver’s Grid, saw a incident filled race, while the competition was competitive and quite possibly, one of the best races that has taken place in the virtual Race At Home Series.

Challenge Series

After dominating last week at Berlin, BMW i Andretti driver, Kevin Siggy had high hopes of continuing his winning ways this week at the virtual New York.

In order to do so, Siggy among his other competitors, would have to have a decent qualifying starting position. For Siggy, he qualified on pole position with a time of 1:11.040. Lucas Mueller would place second, while Petar Brljak were the top three. Mueller did have the fastest lap for the moment, before Siggy took the top spot away narrowly edging Mueller by 0.125 seconds.

Coming into Round No. 6, Siggy had a 33 point lead over Brljak.

As the event went green, almost all the drivers made it through without an incident. However, Jacob Ried in the Venturi Racing entry, made a dive bomb move at the bottom in Turn 5, which caused an incident with a couple of drivers. After doing so, the series officials gave Reid a drive-thru penalty. Reid would continue to have issues throughout the race, as he would be credited with a 20th place finish.

Meanwhile, Mahindra Racing’s Markus Keller would end up spinning around by himself in one of the turns. Other sim racers, Joshua Rogers and Cem Bolukbasi also had troubles of their own by making contact with each other as well. A few laps later on lap 11, Bolukbasi ended up spinning again.

Despite these incidents, Siggy continued to pull away from the field with an impressive 10-second lead over second place. Eventually, the BMW i Andretti driver, would pick up another victory to his name in the Challenge Series. When Siggy crossed the finish line as the winner, he was 12-seconds ahead of second place finisher Jan von der Heyde. Siggy led wire-to-wire by leading all 15 laps.

By scoring the victory, Siggy increased his points lead over Peyo Peev and now leads the way with 53 points.

“The race was just about managing the pace and securing the extra point for fastest lap,” Siggy said. “I just pushed to the end to see how far I could go and fortunately it all worked out in the end.”

Driver’s Grid

As for the driver’s grid, Mercedes-Benz driver, Stoffel Vandoorne set the pace in qualifying by having the fastest lap time of 1:11.158 seconds. Vandoorne was looking for his first victory in the virtual challenge series, despite having four poles.

Before the race started, Mahindra Racing’s Pascal Wehrlein, had to give up his second place starting position, due to a collision the previous week with Maximilian Günther at Berlin. Therefore, Wehrlein was seen a five race grid penalty and started in the seventh position instead.

When the lights went out at the virtual New York, contact was made with several drivers in Turn 5. The unluckiest person being involved in the incident was, Günther who had taken over Wehrlein’s starting position in second. After the collision, Günther was sent all the way back to 19th.

Throughout the virtual event, there was more action seen everywhere in the racing field. On lap 3, Sebastien Buemi casually spun before getting it together after contact with drivers Oliver Turvey and Andre Lotterer. At lap 11, Wehrlein made a big slide with a bump from Oliver Rowland and Neel Jani, who was all over the back of Wehrlein. Like Buemi, Werhlein saved his vehicle from further incident.

After a close spin by Wehrlein, Rowland and Jani continued to battle for the podiums, making it a thrill to watch between the three drivers. Jani in the TAG Heuer Porsche, actually ended up spinning himself out in Turn 1 on lap 14 of 15.

While that was going on, this allowed race-leader, Vandoorne to stretch his lead and gap with the lead. The Mercedes-Benz driver would finally score his first checkered flag in the Race At Home Series Challenge, after once again, starting on the pole.

“It has taken a while before getting here to win a race!,” Vandoorne said. “Today was a perfect result; pole position, race win and also the fastest lap, so it has been a good day in the office. It has been coming for a long time, today we were just faster and did not have any problems. That was kind of 99 percent the job done.”

With the victory, Vandoorne leads over Wehrlein by one point in the championship points standings heading into the final two races next weekend, including the double points event at Berlin next Sunday.

By scoring the victory, Stoffel Vandoorne was also awarded the TAG Heuer fastest lap of the race.

Next weekend will mark the final events of the Race At Home Challenge hosted by the FIA ABB Formula E Series. The driver who ends up winning the championship in the Challenge Series, will get to drive a real life Formula E car on a race weekend. There will be two events slated for the entire weekend. The first on Saturday June 6 at the virtual New York, which will serve as the penultimate race. While, on Sunday June 7, Berlin will be the grand finale of the series, serving as a double header championship points event

Official Driver Grid Results

  1. Stoffel Vandoorne
  2. Pascal Wehrlein
  3. Oliver Rowland
  4. Antonio Felix da Costa
  5. Neel Jani
  6. Mitch Evans
  7. James Calado
  8. Sebastien Buemi
  9. Oliver Turvey
  10. Andre Lotterer
  11. Ma Qing Hua
  12. Maximilian Günther
  13. Robin Frijns, OUT, Did Not Finish
  14. Alexander Sims, OUT, Did Not Finish
  15. Nyck de Vries, OUT, Did Not Finish
  16. Brendon Hartley, OUT, Did Not Finish
  17. Felipe Massa, OUT, Did Not Finish
  18. Jean-Eric Vergne, OUT, Did Not Finish
  19. Jerome D’ Ambrosio, OUT, Did Not Finish
  20. Edoardo Mortara, OUT, Did Not Finish
  21. Nico Mueller, OUT, Did Not Finish
  22. Lucas di Grassi, OUT, Did Not Finish
  23. Sam Bird, OUT, Did Not Finish

Official Driver’s Grid Points Standings

  1. Stoffel Vandoorne, 105 points
  2. Pascal Wehrlein, 104 points
  3. Maximilian Günther, 73 points
  4. Oliver Rowland, 58 points
  5. Robin Frijns, 48 points
  6. Neel Jani, 35 points
  7. Nico Mueller, 29 points
  8. Edoardo Mortara, 27 points
  9. Antonio Felix da Costa, 26 points
  10. James Calado, 25 points
  11. Oliver Turvey, 22 points
  12. Nick Cassidy, 19 points
  13. Andre Lotterer, 13 points
  14. Mitch Evans, 10 points
  15. Sebastien Buemi, 9 points
  16. Nyck de Vries, 6 points
  17. Felipe Massa, 4 points
  18. Jerome D’ Ambrosio, 2 points
  19. Ma Qing Hua, 2 points
  20. Alexander Sims, 1 point
  21. Jean-Eric Vergne, 0 points
  22. Lucas di Grassi, 0 points
  23. Brendon Hartley, 0 points
  24. Sam Bird, 0 points

Official Challenge Grid Results

  1. Kevin Siggy
  2. Jan von der Heyde
  3. Joshua Rogers
  4. Cem Bolukbasi
  5. Peyo Peev
  6. Kush Maini
  7. Nuno Pinto
  8. Arjan Veltens
  9. Alisdair Irvine
  10. Petar Brljak
  11. Lucas Mueller
  12. Niek Jacobs
  13. Markus Keller, OUT, Did Not Finish
  14. Ozgur Benzes, OUT, Did Not Finish
  15. Scott Sovik, OUT, Did Not Finish
  16. Ben Hitz, OUT, Did Not Finish
  17. Axel La Flamme, OUT, Did Not Finish
  18. Yifei Ye, OUT, Did Not Finish
  19. Armando Iannaccone, OUT, Did Not Finish
  20. Jacob Reid, OUT, Did Not Finish
  21. Charlie Martin, OUT, Did Not Finish
  22. Noah Reuvers, OUT, Did Not Finish
  23. Mike Channell, OUT, Did Not Finish
  24. Verena Mei, OUT, Did Not Finish

Official Challenge Grid Standings

  1. Kevin Siggy, 129 points
  2. Peyo Peev 76 points
  3. Lucas Mueller, 73 points
  4. Petar Brljak, 71 points
  5. Joshua Rogers, 60 points
  6. Jan von der Heyde, 50 points
  7. Cem Bolukbasi, 24 points
  8. Nuno Pinto, 23 points
  9. Jacob Reid, 20 points
  10. Niek Jacobs, 16 points
  11. Ben Hitz, 15 points
  12. Oli Pahkala, 12 points
  13. Erhan Jakovski, 10 points
  14. Marius Golombeck, 10 points
  15. Kush Maini, 9 points
  16. Arjan Veltens, 8 points
  17. Remco Majoor, 6 points
  18. Kuba Brzezinski, 6 points
  19. Jim Parisis, 6 points
  20. Markus Keller, 6 points
  21. Alisdair Irvine, 4 points
  22. Noah Reuvers, 1 point
  23. Alex Lynn, 1 point

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SpeedwayMedia.com

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

RacingJunk.com and Leaf Racewear Safety Equipment Giveaway

Latest articles

Pro Football Hall of Famer, FOX NFL Analyst Michael Strahan To Drive Pace Car...

Michael Strahan has been named honorary Pace Car driver for the 109th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge on Sunday, May 25 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Elliott, Allgaier and Caruth win Most Popular Driver Awards

The National Motorsports Press Association announced the 2024 Most Popular Driver Awards on Friday evening at the NASCAR Awards Banquet at the Charlotte Convention Center.

Eli Tomac and Shane McElrath dominate down under with FIM World Supercross Championship Australian...

Eli Tomac and Shane McElrath extend FIM World Supercross Championship leads with WSX and SX2 clean sweep at WSX Australian GP at HBF Park in Perth.

DAVID WILSON EARNS PRESTIGIOUS BILL FRANCE AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE

Retiring TRD U.S.A. president David Wilson was honored at the annual NASCAR Awards ceremony this evening with the Bill France Award for Excellenc

Best New Zealand Online Casinos