Günther was consistently one of the fastest drivers in dry conditions. He claimed second and first places in the two practice sessions and then finished third in qualifying to reach the Super Pole, where he benefited from penalties incurred by two competitors and secured second spot on the grid. However, the rain set in as the race began and Günther was unable to keep pace with the leaders on the wet surface. He was initially able to defend his second position but then fell back to sixth. Towards the halfway point of the race, he slid out of turn two under braking and finished up in the gravel trap. That triggered one of four full course yellows that saw the FIA Formula E Safety Car, the MINI Electric Pacesetter inspired by JCW, bring the field back together. As had been the case in Rome, this race also started behind the Safety Car due to the rain.

Starting from 13^th position, Dennis battled for a top ten result throughout the race but in common with most of the other drivers, he discovered that his calculated energy amount was insufficient to allow him to complete the final lap. After the curious closing stage, Dennis was classified in eleventh position. However, further rule infringements related to energy management led to the imposition of disqualifications after the race, which Dennis benefited from.

The second race of the DHL Valencia E-Prix starts on Sunday at 14:00.

“We came to Valencia with high hopes after our good results in testing. That really did start to show with strong performances in practice and qualifying. It started to rain heavily between qualifying and race start and unfortunately, Maximilian Günther struggled to find grip under these conditions and lost the rear of his car during braking into turn 2. His race ended there. Jake Dennis had a trouble-free morning and made good progress throughout the sessions. In the race he was competitive in the beginning. After the last safety car period there was a significant energy reduction by race control that caused trouble for a lot of cars including the BMW iFE.21. That was a bewildering closing stage but we did suspect that there could be some retrospective penalties.”

“A disappointing race obviously. It’s extremely unfortunate not to finish it. We just didn’t have the pace in the wet today. I struggled a lot with the grip from the first lap. I was able to defend quite well for a few laps, but then I dropped back position by position. At that point the goal was to score some points. Then braking into turn 2 the rear locked completely and I wasn’t able to catch it anymore. That was the end of my race. Generally, our pace was very good today in the dry and I was happy with our performance in practice and qualifying. We must analyse what went wrong in the wet but also focus on tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a dry race then.”