FE: di Grassi gets win, points lead at Long Beach

Lucas di Grassi picked the perfect way to rebound from his disqualification last time out in Mexico City with a commanding win in Saturday's Formula E ePrix at Long Beach.

The Brazilian, who lost his Mexico win after a post-race inspection determined that his car was underweight, took the lead from pole-sitter Sam Bird halfway through the opening stint, and as the race progressed he stretched his lead to as much as 4.5s.

That advantage went out the window when Nelson Piquet Jr carried too much speed into the chicane and bounced into the wall, bringing out a late safety car. The race returned to green with three laps to go, and di Grassi held his advantage to take the win.

• Long Beach ePrix video highlights 

"This is our answer to that 1.8kg that was missing from one of the [Abt] cars in Mexico," said di Grassi. "If you keep your mind in a good mindset, good results will come, so I am happy.

"This is a tricky track; it is very easy to make mistakes. It was an extremely difficult race. It’s a difficult car to drive, it’s difficult to keep it on the edge, so you can never feel confident that you’re going to win a race."

The victory was enough to propel di Grassi to the top of the championship table by a single point after Sebastien Buemi, who'd come into the weekend as the leader, suffered an awful weekend.

The Renault e.Dams driver had started encouragingly with a nice early pass on Christian Abt, but a poorly-judged lunge on Amlin Andretti's Robin Frijns at the hairpin ended with both drivers being forced to pit for new wings, with Buemi earning a second pitlane visit after being issued a penalty for causing the crash.

Abt, meanwhile, completed the Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport team's strong afternoon by finishing third. Sandwiched in between the German and teammate di Grassi was French veteran Stephane Sarrazin, whose second place was his career-best FE finish.

Polesitter Bird was forced onto the back foot when he nosed into the wall at Turn 5 just before the race reached half-distance. The Brit somehow managed to avoid serious damage, but he dropped from fourth to seventh; eventually recovering to sixth.

Just ahead of him were the Mahindra duo of Nick Heidfeld and Bruno Senna, although both Heidfeld and Bird were subject to post-race investigations for unspecified reasons.

Elsewhere, Antonio Felix da Costa was making a strong recovery from his starting place at the back of the field until retiring just a few laps from the end. There was better news for Amlin Andretti's Simona de Silvestro, who left Long Beach with her first-ever Formula E points after finishing ninth.