Stoffel Vandoorne Bags Maiden Podium but Breaks Down

Published 04/13/2019, 1:42 PM EDT

Stoffel Vandoorne cannot seem to catch a break at all in whichever sport he is racing in. Whether it is being shown up by Fernando Alonso in Formula One or a spate of bad luck in Formula E, things have gone wrong for him for a while.

So, at the Rome ePrix earlier today, Vandoorne was in the top 5 on the grid with many hoping for a change of fortune. The race was red-flagged when Jose Maria Lopez crashed out and caused a massive traffic jam, three minutes into the race.

On the restart, Andre Lotterer and Mitch Evans took off into their own little battle. Vandoorne was 3rd and holding his own on the track. With effective use of Attack Mode, Stoffel Vandoorne was able to reel in the leaders.

https://streamable.com/gw4l0

In the end, after a tense race with batteries running out, Evans won from Lotterer and a delighted Vandorne took third. Then… disaster struck as his Mercedes-backed HWA broke down due to a driveshaft failure. He still kept the podium fortunately, but was spared a forlorn trudge to the podium, coutesy the safety car picking him up.

In the championship, Mahindra Racing’s Jerome D’Ambrosio still leads the championship from former Red Bull young driver, Antonio Felix da Costa.

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.