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2018 Marrakesh ePrix

The 2018 Marrakesh ePrix was a Formula E electric car race held at the Circuit International Automobile Moulay El Hassan in the Agdal district of Marrakesh, Morocco on 13 January 2018. It was the third round of the 2017–18 Formula E Championship and the second Marrakesh ePrix. The 33-lap race was won by Mahindra driver Felix Rosenqvist after starting from third place. Sébastien Buemi finished in second place for e.Dams-Renault and Virgin driver Sam Bird took third.

Background
The Marrakesh ePrix was confirmed as part of Formula E's 2017–18 series schedule in September 2017 by the FIA World Motor Sport Council. It was the third of twelve scheduled single-seater electric car races of the 2017–18 Championship, The race was held on 13 January 2018 at the 12-turn anti-clockwise Circuit International Automobile Moulay El Hassan street circuit in the Agdal district of Marrakesh, Morocco. (pictured in 2014) replaced Neel Jani at Dragon for the rest of the season. Coming into the race Virgin driver Sam Bird led the Drivers' Championship with 35 points, two ahead of Jean-Éric Vergne in second and a further six in front of Felix Rosenqvist in third. Edoardo Mortara was the highest-placed rookie driver in fourth with 24 points and Nick Heidfeld was fifth with 15 points. Mahindra led the Teams' Championship with 44 points with Virgin in second with 41 points. Techeetah stood in third position with 33 points and Venturi (30) and Jaguar (27) contended for fourth. The response from the drivers was mixed: 2016–17 champion Lucas di Grassi was positive but wished the rule was changed before the season. Bird feared drivers would not attach their seat belts on correctly in order to spend less time in the pit lane and lower safety standards, saying "If things like this start to be ignored then it's not the right thing to do." The inaugural in-season rookie test was scheduled to be held at the circuit the day after the race. Teams were permitted six hours of running and were allowed to field two drivers who were not in possession of an e-licence at the time of the test. A total of ten teams fielded two drivers each for a total of 20 participants for the ePrix. There were two pre-race driver changes. Having missed the season-opening Hong Kong double header to allow World Endurance Championship driver Kamui Kobayashi to race because of a sponsorship demand, former Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters competitor Tom Blomqvist was confirmed to race for Andretti for Marrakesh and the rest of the season. 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans co-winner and World Endurance Champion Neel Jani struggled for pace at the Hong Kong double header and entered into discussions with Dragon over how the team should progress. Both sides mutually agreed to end their alliance early. Jani's place at the team was filled by three-time World Touring Car champion José María López for the rest of the season. ==Practice==
Practice
Two practice sessions—both on Saturday morning—were held before the late afternoon race. The first session ran for 45 minutes and the second for half an hour. A half an hour untimed shakedown session was held on Friday afternoon to enable teams to check the reliability of their cars and their electronic systems. Di Grassi used of power to go fastest with a late lap of 1 minute, 20.310 seconds, nine-tenths of a second quicker than Jérôme d'Ambrosio in second. Daniel Abt, Mitch Evans, Sébastien Buemi (e.Dams-Renault), Bird, Vergne, Nelson Piquet Jr., (Jaguar), Rosenqvist and Oliver Turvey (NIO) filled positions three to ten. Similarly, André Lotterer reset his car after stopping on track. Heavy fog descended over the track at the start of the second session. it was not thick enough to disrupt proceedings. Six drivers led the session but Abt lowered the unofficial track lap record to a 1-minute, 19.760 seconds to go fastest. His teammate di Grassi was 0.138 seconds adrift in second and Buemi placed third. Evans equalled his first practice result in fourth. His teammate Piquet, Alex Lynn, López, Rosenqvist, and the Techeetah pair of Vergne and Lotterer completed the top ten. As in the previous session, several drivers locked their tyres and ran onto the run-off areas due to a dusty track with Vergne and António Félix da Costa controlling their cars despite brake-related issues. ==Qualifying==
Qualifying
Saturday's afternoon qualifying session ran for an hour 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. Teams kept their cars in their garages for as long as they could so that there was no overcrowding on the track. Buemi was one-tenth off di Grassi's pace but his lap allowed him to lead the second group. Consequently, Mortara slowed because of the accident; he began from 18th after further electrical issues stopped him at the final corner. The start of the fourth group was delayed since marshals needed to repair the damaged wall and remove Heidfeld's car from the track. A large amount of water spilled onto the tarmac surface at turn 11 worsened its condition and bodywork debris was in the area. The rest of the grid lined up after Lotterer's penalty as Lynn, Piquet, Abt, Evans, Turvey, Filippi, Blomqvist, Vergne, Engel, Prost, d'Ambrosio, Heidfeld, Mortara, Félix da Costa and Lotterer. Qualifying classification Notes: • — Oliver Turvey and Jérôme d'Ambrosio started from the pit lane due to technical problems with their respective cars. • — André Lotterer was demoted to the back of the field for missing the signal to enter the weighbridge. ==Race==
Race
The race started at 16:00 Western European Time (UTC+0) on 13 January. The weather at the start were dry and sunny with the air temperature between and the track temperature . Chassis manufacturer Spark Racing Technology ordered that Rosenqvist's battery be changed half an hour before the race began after Mahindra were alterted to the problem. Similarly, Buemi began the race in his second car as the one he intended to start in had a water pump failure. Audi undertook a precautionary power inverter change in di Grassi's car. Buemi made a clean start to retain the lead heading into the first corner as Bird and Rosenqvist maintained second and third. Both ran close behind Buemi as most drivers also made clean starts. Mortara made contact with another car further down the field. Lynn was spun onto the run-off area, and re-joined the track in 19th. Turvey was the main beneficiary of the incident, moving to 15th place. He drove off the racing line and Audi instructed him to stop his car. Di Grassi attempted a restart procedure, prompting the waving of localised yellow flags. (pictured in 2016) passed Buemi to secure his third career victory and his second in a row. Meanwhile, his teammate Abt overtook Piquet for fourth but was issued a drive-through penalty for his earlier contact with Lynn. Abt exited the pit lane behind Lynn in 15th place as Turvey moved to tenth. Vergne was sixth and his teammate Lotterer 13th. The problems affecting the Audi pair of di Grassi and Abt promoted López to fourth. Course officials waved yellow flags at the section of the track Lotterer stopped at for half a minute until the race director decided a full course yellow was necessary. Piquet set the eace's fastest lap on the penultimate lap, completing a circuit in 1 minute, 22.832 seconds, earning him one point. Buemi followed 0.945 seconds later in second and Bird completed the podium in third. Off the podium, Piquet equalled his best result of the season in fourth and Vergne took fifth. Engel was deemed responsible for causing the Heidfeld-Mortara crash and incurred a post-race drive through penalty converted into time, dropping him to twelfth. Buemi stated he did not mind losing the win to Rosenqvist, feeling the latter had "payback" after his victory in the second 2017 Berlin ePrix was revoked because of a sporting infringement, "When you lose a race you always end up a bit disappointed. But everyone thought we had no pace and we were done, and we came here, had pole and finished second. We showed everyone we're still there." The final positions moved Rosenqvist to top of the Drivers' Championship for the first time in his career with 54 points. Bird's second-place result dropped him to four points behind Rosenqvist in second while Vergne fell to third place after finishing fifth. Piquet gained three positions to move into fourth on 25 points and Mortara was fifth, one further point behind. Mahindra further extended their advantage atop of the Teams' Championship on 75 points; Virgin had 17 less points but still maintained second place and Techeetah remained in third. Jaguar overtook Venturi for fourth with nine races left in the season. Rosenqvist spoke of his satisfaction of leading the championship and revealed it motivated him not to take too many risks in the upcoming races. Race classification Drivers who scored championship points are denoted in bold. Notes: • — Three points for pole position. • — One point for fastest lap. • — Maro Engel had twenty seconds added to his race time for causing a collision. • — Nico Prost was penalised twenty seconds for exceeding the speed limit during the full course yellow period. ==Standings after the race==
Standings after the race
;Drivers' Championship standings ;Teams' Championship standings • Notes: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. ==References==
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