Crazy was a very apt description for Extreme E’s Crazy Race at the Jurassic X-Prix on Saturday afternoon.
All three of the cars squeezed together at the start and it was Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyle LeDuc that lost out, getting pushed to the back while Timmy Hansen stormed clear for Andretti United.
While Hansen disappeared off into the distance on the opening lap, LeDuc and Xite Energy Racing’s Oliver Bennett battled hard over second place and LeDuc managed to make a move around the outside of a long right-hand bend midway through the opening lap.
By the time Hansen came in for the driver switch at the end of lap two, he held a 4.6-second advantage over Ganassi, and it looked like his team would be on for a comfortable win.
But once Sara Price took over from LeDuc, she found a lot of pace compared to the lead car of Catie Munnings and reduced the gap to almost nothing.
Munnings managed to hold on to take the win, but only just as Price ended up finishing just 0.46s behind as they crossed the line.
“My engineer said ‘manage your pace, manage your pace’, we knew there was nowhere to pass on that lane bit,” Munnings told DirtFish post-race.
“There are bumps that just really kick you up, so I was going a bit slower than I did earlier to try and make sure I didn’t lose my line which is so easy to do, but Sara did an awesome drive.
“I know she gave it full send. She said at the end she had to go around a different line to see if she could overtake; it was really nice to have close racing.
“We haven’t had a lot of that this year with dust and things like that, so I think it was cool to see that we will have that in the final as well.”
Bennett lost touch with the leading pair early on in the race and things didn’t get any better as the car suffered from power-steering issues. Xite Energy did manage to make it to the end, but with the damage making the car almost “undriveable” it meant the team finished over a minute-and-a-half back from the leading pair.
