(Reuters) – Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne won the Monaco ePrix for the Mercedes-EQ team on Saturday to celebrate his first victory of the season in the electric Formula E world championship and go top of the standings.
Jaguar’s Mitch Evans was second in the sixth round of the season and double Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne finished third for DS Techeetah in front of a crowd of more than 15,000.
“It is an amazing feeling,” said former McLaren Formula One driver Vandoorne after his third career Formula E win and Mercedes’ second of the current campaign.
“Monaco is always a special race to win as a driver. Last year we had a tough time here, this year we managed to turn it around.
“The target was to qualify at the front and then I knew we would be in the mix, and that is exactly how the race panned out,” added the Belgian, who had not won since Rome in April last year.
Evans, winner of the two previous races in Rome, started from pole position but lost out after a race-long battle with Vandoorne.
Vergne remains the only driver to have scored in every race this season.
Vandoorne now has 81 points to Vergne’s 75 and Evans’ 72, with Mercedes leading the team standings on 120 points to DS Techeetah’s haul of 105.
The next round is a double-header in Berlin on May 14 and 15, marking the midpoint of season eight.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Christian Radnedge)
