The temperature went up drastically last weekend in Rome, both on and off the track. The Formula E title battle reached fever pitch when championship rivals and childhood friends Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy collided, paving the way for Jake Dennis to put one hand on the title. A 24-point lead ahead of the London E-Prix double-header at the end of the month places Dennis firmly in the pound seats.
PLUS: How Dennis conquered Rome to lay siege to the Formula E title
The events of Sunday and their title ramifications somewhat overshadowed what had happened the day before when, for a few seconds, everyone held a collective breath following the biggest crash in Formula E history.
The wide eyes and heavy breathing captured by the onboard camera on Edoardo Mortara’s car, just seconds after his huge head-on impact with the stricken machine of Sam Bird, made it clear for everyone to see what immense forces the Maserati MSG driver and others had endured. Over the following minutes the full scale of the crash soon began to emerge with six cars eliminated – four of which were essentially put in the bin – while a further four machines were repaired under the red flag and able to form up for the subsequent restart.
Thankfully, and almost incredibly, all drivers were able to walk away unharmed, but it had been a close call. Mortara’s big impact with Bird took place just slightly behind the Jaguar’s safety cell and not quite at a 90-degree angle, although the incident instantly brought flashbacks to the crash that claimed the life of Dilano van’t Hoff recently, albeit in somewhat different circumstances.
And there was no doubt that the halo protected Antonio Felix da Costa from serious injury after the Porsche driver went underneath Sebastien Buemi’s car. The Envision Racing driver was the first on the scene and hit Bird after the Briton had lost control on the high-speed, left sweep of Turn 6 and finished broadside across the track. The incident was not the first to take place along that part of the track, which is a blind, uphill section that is notoriously bumpy, after it had already claimed Andre Lotterer earlier in the race and Jake Hughes in qualifying.
With emotions understandably high after the pile-up, there were calls for changes to be made to the circuit. Bird described the bumps and raised drain covers as “too much” and called for modifications to be made ahead of next year.
But do the drivers have a point? The current configuration of the Circuito Cittadino dell’EUR street circuit in Rome has been used since 2021 and, while bumps along that section have always been noticeable, they’ve never posed a significant problem until now.
Source: Autosport