The 2017 Paris ePrix (formally the 2017 Qatar Airways Paris ePrix) was a Formula E electric motor race held on 20 May 2017 at the Circuit des Invalides in the Les Invalides building complex before a crowd of 46,000 people. It was the sixth race of the 2016–17 Formula E Championship and the second Paris ePrix. e.Dams-Renault driver Sébastien Buemi won the 49-lap race from pole position. José María López finished second for the Virgin team and Mahindra driver Nick Heidfeld third.
Buemi won the pole position by recording the fastest time in qualifying and held off second-placed starter Jean-Éric Vergne to keep the lead at the start of the race. Buemi pulled away from Vergne but the field was closed after a crash between championship rival Lucas di Grassi and António Félix da Costa on the 16th lap brought out a full course yellow. All drivers, including Buemi, made their mandatory pit stops to switch into a second car as a consequence of the accident. Buemi regained the lead three laps after the restart from Mike Conway when the latter made his own stop to switch into his second car. Vergne crashed on lap 34 which caused the safety car to be deployed. Buemi held off López at the restart four laps later and led the rest of the race to claim the victory. There were three lead changes among three different drivers during the course of the race.
It was Buemi's fifth victory of the season, the eleventh of his career, and his first in Paris. The result extended Buemi's Drivers' Championship advantage to 43 points ahead of di Grassi, and his teammate Nico Prost maintained third place. Heidfeld's strong finish moved him to fourth and Vergne's failure to finish meant he to fifth. e.Dams-Renault consolidated their lead in the Teams' Championship to 75 points in front of the non-scoring Audi Sport ABT, and Mahindra kept third position with six races left in the season.
Background
The Paris ePrix was confirmed as part of Formula E's 2016–17 series schedule in September 2016 by the FIA World Motor Sport Council. It was the sixth of twelve scheduled single-seater electric car races of the 2016–17 Championship, the second Paris ePrix, and was held on 20 May 2017 at the Circuit des Invalides in the Les Invalides building complex. The 2016 race was held in April but the 2017 edition was moved to May to enable teams and drivers to drive in better weather. The Circuit des Invalides is long, run in an clockwise direction and is composed of 14 turns.
Before the race e.Dams-Renault driver Sébastien Buemi led the Drivers' Championship with 104 points, 15 ahead of Lucas di Grassi in second and a further 43 in front of third-placed Nico Prost. Jean-Éric Vergne was fourth with 40 points and Sam Bird was fifth with 34 points. e.Dams-Renault led the Teams' Championship with 152 points; Audi Sport ABT were in second place on 115 points. Mahindra stood in third with 60 points, while Techeetah and Virgin contended for fourth position.
Buemi, the pre-race favourite, stated that after winning the Monaco ePrix one week prior, he ventured to Paris with more motivation to achieve another podium finish, saying: "It's a special weekend for us with the team and I will do my best to continue our top form." José María López stated he felt his team were due a good finish after a sub-par performance in Monaco and had prepared extensively for the race. He looked forward to competing in Paris for the first time and expected to achieve a decent points-scoring position. Mahindra's Nick Heidfeld said he sought another podium finish to allow Mahindra to retain third place in the Teams' Championship but was wary of cold weather causing several cars to struggle on cold tyre temperatures. Vergne spoke of his belief Paris would be his "best race of the year" and praised the work the city put in to hold the race, "The Paris track is not the kind of track we have been to except for Hong Kong – really bumpy, narrow, difficult to drive – so we'll see how it goes."
A total of 10 squads each entering two participants for a total of 20 drivers for the race. There were two driver changes for the race. Loïc Duval (Dragon) and Maro Engel (Venturi) were unable to drive in Paris because of a Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters commitment at the Lausitzring and were replaced by Toyota World Endurance Championship (WEC) driver Mike Conway and the Formula V8 3.5 Series champion Tom Dillmann. Conway had previously tested for Dragon in the first season's pre-season testing session at Donington Park and returned to the sport the following season to drive for Venturi in the campaign's final seven races. Dillmann had prior experience driving for Venturi with his participation in the Mexico City ePrix shakedown session in place of regular driver Stéphane Sarrazin who attended the WEC pre-season test session at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza for Toyota. Formula Two driver Nyck de Vries had been considered for the role before Dillmann was selected. Dillmann stated in a press release that he was "delighted" to take part in the event and expressed his desire to contest a full season of the series in the future.
Practice Two practice sessions—both on Saturday morning—were held before the Saturday late afternoon race. The first session ran for 45 minutes and the second for 30 minutes. A 30-minute shakedown session was held on late Friday afternoon without any major incidents but no lap times were officially published by Formula E. Both of the practice sessions took place in dry weather. In the first practice session, Buemi used of power to record the fastest time of 1 minute, 1.998 seconds, seven-tenths of a second faster than López in second. Vergne, Di Grassi, Felix Rosenqvist, Bird, Conway, Nelson Piquet Jr., Heidfeld and Prost made up positions three to ten. Bird's car shut down because of a power failure at the exit of the first turn. He abandoned his vehicle at the side of the track, and first practice was stopped temporarily after three minutes. Bird's teammate López caused a brief full course yellow flag period when he gently collided with the turn one barrier. He was able to reverse out of the corner and drove to the pit lane. Esteban Gutiérrez went onto a run-off area, and both Audi Sport ABT drivers locked their tyres, reversing out of the turn one escape road. Di Grassi recorded the second session's fastest lap late into a qualifying simulation at 1 minute, 1.359 seconds; he was two-tenths of a second faster than López in second. Buemi, Daniel Abt, Bird, Rosenqvist, Prost, Oliver Turvey of NextEV, Vergne and Andretti's Robin Frijns occupied positions three through ten. During the second practice, where multiple drivers ran deep onto the turn one run-off area, Conway pushed hard, causing him to lose control of his car's rear at the final corner. He spun but avoided damage to his vehicle.
Qualifying
Saturday afternoon's qualifying session ran for 60 minutes and was divided into four groups of five cars. Each group was determined by a lottery system and was permitted six minutes of on-track activity. All drivers were limited to two timed laps with one at maximum power. The fastest five overall competitors in the four groups participated in a "Super Pole" session with one driver on the track at any time going out in reverse order from fifth to first. Each of the five drivers was limited to one timed lap and the starting order was determined by the competitor's fastest times (Super Pole from first to fifth, and group qualifying from sixth to twentieth). The driver and team who recorded the fastest time were awarded three points towards their respective championships. Qualifying took place in dry weather.
Lap times were slower than the previous year's session because of subtle track surface changes and new tyres provided by Michelin. In the first group of five drivers, which saw no one venture out of their garages and onto the track for the first three minutes because they were unwilling to see who would be the first to set a benchmark lap, Buemi set the fastest overall lap in group qualifying with a lap of 1 minute, 2.171 seconds, ahead of Rosenqvist, di Grassi. Abt and Bird. López was fastest in the track's first third of the lap to lead the second group, followed by Mitch Evans (Jaguar) and Prost, Conway and Piquet. In the third group, local favourite Vergne went second-fastest overall, with Turvey 0.110 seconds slower. Gutiérrez, Jérôme d'Ambrosio and Stéphane Sarrazin (Andretti and Venturi) completed the third group. Sarrazin pulled over to the side of the track when his powertrain switched off during his minimum power lap, before restarting his car. This allowed him to continue, although the problem meant he started from last on the grid. Despite going the fastest of any competitor in the fourth group, Heidfeld narrowly missed out on qualifying for the super pole, while second-quickest driver Frijns was also not able to advance further by less than a tenth of a second. Dillmann, António Félix da Costa and Adam Carroll (Andretti and Jaguar) competed the fourth group's running order. After group qualifying ended, Buemi, Vergne, Turvey, López and Gutiérrez qualified for super pole.
Gutiérrez was the first driver to attempt his super pole lap and recorded fast times before locking his brakes and running deep into the turn eight escape road, and was restricted to fifth. López, seeking his first pole position in Formula E, was the next competitor to drive onto the track and took third, but was investigated for the inadvertent usage of excessive electrical energy on his out-lap after mistakenly switching his car's settings. Although no penalty was applied, the switching of settings damaged his car's battery, leading to it being changed before the race. Turvey was fastest in the first third of the lap before a small error in the following section left him fourth. Vergne was faster than López to move into provisional pole position. Buemi was the final driver to set his lap, and despite making small errors in the final third of the lap took pole position with a time of 1 minute, 2.319 seconds. The time gap to Vergne was 0.006 seconds, the closest in Formula E history. It was Buemi's second consecutive pole position, and the eighth of his career. After qualifying ended, Turvey was demoted ten places on the grid because his team changed a powertrain component. Following penalties, the rest of the grid order was set as Heidfeld, Rosenqvist, Frijns, Evans, Prost, Conway, Piquet, d'Ambrosio, di Grassi, Turvey, Dillmann, Abt, Félix da Costa, Bird, Carroll and Sarrazin.
Qualifying classification +Final qualifying classification Driver Team 1 9 Sébastien Buemi e.Dams-Renault 1:02.171 1:02.319 1 2 25 Jean-Éric Vergne Techeetah-Renault 1:02.274 1:02.325 2 3 37 José María López Virgin-Citroën 1:02.459 1:02.640 3 4 88 Oliver Turvey NextEV NIO 1:02.384 1:02.910 14 5 33 Esteban Gutiérrez Techeetah-Renault 1:02.597 1:13.287 4 6 23 Nick Heidfeld Mahindra 1:02.611 5 7 19 Felix Rosenqvist Mahindra 1:02.617 6 8 27 Robin Frijns Andretti-BMW 1:02.654 7 9 20 Mitch Evans Jaguar 1:02.687 8 10 8 Nico Prost e.Dams-Renault 1:02.746 9 11 6 Mike Conway Dragon-Penske 1:02.808 10 12 3 Nelson Piquet Jr. NextEV NIO 1:02.810 11 13 7 Jérôme d'Ambrosio Dragon-Penske 1:02.814 12 14 11 Lucas di Grassi Audi Sport ABT 1:02.840 13 15 5 Tom Dillmann Venturi 1:03.024 15 16 66 Daniel Abt Audi Sport ABT 1:03.071 16 17 28 António Félix da Costa Andretti-BMW 1:03.268 17 18 2 Sam Bird Virgin-Citroën 1:03.573 18 19 47 Adam Carroll Jaguar 1:03.771 19 20 4 Stéphane Sarrazin Venturi 1:06.121 20Source:
Notes: — Oliver Turvey was demoted ten places for changing his powertrain.
Race