The 2021 Diriyah ePrix (officially the 2021 ABB FIA Formula E Diriyah ePrix) was a pair of

Formula E Formula E, officially the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, is a single-seater motorsport championship for electric cars. The series was conceived in 2011 in Paris by FIA president Jean Todt and Spanish businessman Alejandro Agag, w ...

electric car races held at the Riyadh Street Circuit in the town of

Diriyah Diriyah ( ar, الدِرْعِيّة), formerly romanized as Dereyeh and Dariyya), is a town in Saudi Arabia located on the north-western outskirts of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Diriyah was the original home of the Saudi royal family, and served ...

, north-west of

Riyadh Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, Literal translation, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi Arabic, Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyad ...

, in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries by area, fifth-largest country in Asia ...

on 26 and 27 February 2021. It was the opening round of the

2020–21 Formula E season The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen bu ...

and the third edition of the Diriyah ePrix, and marked the first ever Formula E race held at night. The first race was won by

Nyck de Vries Hendrik Johannes Nicasius "Nyck" de Vries (; born 6 February 1995) is a Dutch racing driver who is currently serving as the reserve driver for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team. He is confirmed to be driving full-time in Formula 1 at Scuderia ...

, with

Edoardo Mortara Edoardo "Edo" Mortara (born 12 January 1987) is a Swiss- Italian-French professional racing driver for Maserati MSG Racing. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, he holds triple nationality from all three countries. He is a former Formula Three Euros ...

and

Mitch Evans Mitchell William Evans (born 24 June 1994) is a New Zealand professional racing driver. He currently drives for the Jaguar TCS Racing team in Formula E. In 2012, he won the GP3 Series and he raced in the GP2 Series for four years, achieving ...

rounding out the podium.

Sam Bird Sam Jamie Bird (born 9 January 1987) is a British professional racing driver who currently drives for Jaguar TCS Racing in the FIA Formula E World Championship. Career Formula BMW Bird made his name in single seater racing in the Formula ...

won the second race, ahead of

Robin Frijns Robin Frijns (born 7 August 1991) is a Dutch motor racing driver. He is the 2012 Formula Renault 3.5 Series champion, and the first driver to have won the series in his debut season since Robert Kubica in 2005. Frijns is currently competing in F ...

and

António Félix da Costa António Maria de Mello Breyner Félix da Costa (born 31 August 1991) is a Portuguese professional racing driver for the Porsche Formula E Team and the 2019–20 Formula E Drivers' Champion. He won the Macau Grand Prix invitational Formula Th ...

Classification

Race one

Qualifying

Notes: * –

Nick Cassidy Nick Cassidy (born 19 August 1994) is a New Zealand racing driver, currently competing in Formula E for Envision Racing, and in the World Endurance Championship and Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters with AF Corse. He has won the 2017 championship ...

Tom Blomqvist Tom Leonard Blomqvist (born 30 November 1993) is a New Zealand-based, Britain-born Swedish professional racing driver, and BMW Motorsport works driver, currently racing in the 2022 IMSA SportsCar Championship with Meyer Shank Racing. Blomqvist ...

, and

Nico Müller Nico Müller (born 25 February 1992 in Thun) is a Swiss professional racing driver. He is currently competing in the FIA World Endurance Championship for Peugeot Sport. Career Karting Müller began his karting career in 2004 and the following ...

had their fastest qualifying lap times deleted for failing to reduce speed under double yellow flag.

Race

Notes: * – Pole position; fastest in group stage. * – Fastest lap.

Standings after the race

;Drivers' Championship standings ;Teams' Championship standings * Notes: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

Race two

Qualifying

Notes: * –

Alex Lynn Alexander George Lynn (born 17 September 1993) is a British racing driver. He most recently competed in Formula E, driving for Mahindra Racing in the 2021 season, winning the second race of his home ePrix in London. Lynn has also competed ful ...

received a 3-place grid penalty for causing a collision in race one. * – Following a brake failure in

's car that caused him to crash heavily into the barriers in free practice, all four Mercedes-powered cars were deemed unsafe and therefore not allowed to participate in qualifying.

Race

Notes: * – Pole position; fastest in group stage. * – Fastest lap. * –

Jean-Éric Vergne Jean-Éric Vergne (born 25 April 1990), also known as JEV, is a French racing driver who competes in the FIA Formula E Championship with Dragon Racing. He became the 2017–18 ABB Formula E Champion, after clinching fifth in the New York ePrix ...

René Rast René Rast (born 26 October 1986 in Minden) is a German professional racing driver and the 2017, 2019 and 2020 DTM champion. He previously drove for Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler in Formula E from 2019 to 2021 before Audi left the sport at the end o ...

and

received a drive-through penalty apiece for failing to activate the second of the two mandatory attack modes. Rast and Blomqvist also received a further drive-through penalty for speeding under full course yellow, as did

. Alexander Sims and

received a drive-through penalty each for a technical infringement involving the throttle pedal map. All these penalties were issued after the race and were therefore converted into 24-second time penalties.

Standings after the race

;Drivers' Championship standings ;Teams' Championship standings * Notes: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

Events

Major incidents

suffered a brake failure in his Venturi- Mercedes car while making practice starts after the end of Saturday's free practice 3, causing him to crash heavily into the barriers at turn one. He was taken to hospital for precautionary checks. Mortara was permitted to race, despite not taking part in qualifying. However, he did not take the start as his mechanics could not repair the damage to his car in time. Later on in the day, race two ended early following an accident – not shown on the international broadcast, but on one of the track's

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly tr ...

cameras – involving

and

in which the latter's car flipped over. It came shortly after

Sébastien Buemi Sébastien Olivier Buemi (born 31 October 1988) is a Swiss professional racing driver, who competes in the FIA Formula E Championship for Envision Racing. He competed for Scuderia Toro Rosso in Formula One from 2009 to 2011. After leaving Formul ...

had come to a halt and

Maximilian Günther Maximilian Günther (born 2 July 1997) is a German racing driver currently competing in Formula E for Maserati MSG Racing. Günther has previously driven in Formula 2 with Arden and for Dragon Racing, BMW i Andretti and Nissan e.dams in Form ...

and

had made contact further up ahead on the same lap. Immediately after Lynn's car stopped, Evans jumped out of his car to check on the Briton. The safety car was called out, and eventually the race was concluded with a

red flag Red flag may refer to: * Red flag (idiom), a metaphor for something signalling a problem ** Red flag warning, a term used by meteorologists ** Red flag (battle ensign), maritime flag signaling an intention to give battle with no quarter (fight to ...

. Lynn was taken to hospital for examination, and later the

Mahindra Mahindra may refer to: Business * Mahindra & Mahindra, an Indian multinational car manufacturing corporation **Mahindra Truck and Bus Division, an Indian commercial vehicle manufacturer owned by Mahindra & Mahindra * Mahindra Group *Kotak Mahindr ...

team announced on Twitter that he had been cleared from the hospital, and would thus be allowed to take part in the Rome ePrix. The way the crash unfolded looked similar to that of Formula One driver Mark Webber at the 2010 European Grand Prix, with the exception that Lynn's car landed upside down rather than Webber's right side up.

Other

During the award ceremony, the government of

, with a Patriot missile, neutralized a missile over

, near the town of

, allegedly fired by

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast an ...

Houthi The Houthi movement (; ar, ٱلْحُوثِيُّون ''al-Ḥūthīyūn'' ), officially called Ansar Allah (' ''Partisans of God'' or ''Supporters of God'') and colloquially simply Houthis, is an Islamist political and armed movement that ...

rebels. There were no injuries, but flights were diverted or cancelled, making some participants go back to their hotels, and a house was damaged. This also raised concerns about the then-upcoming

Saudi Arabian Grand Prix The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix ( ar, جائزة السعودية الكبرى) is a Formula One motor racing event which took place for the first time in 2021. The inaugural edition of the race was held in Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia. It was the fif ...

, with regards to safety for the staff, teams, and drivers; such a missile attack did occur during the 2022 running of the Formula One event.

Notes

References

, - style="text-align:center" , width="35%", Previous race:
2020 Berlin ePrix , width="30%", FIA Formula E World Championship
2020–21 season , width="35%", Next race:
2021 Rome ePrix , - style="text-align:center" , width="35%", Previous race:
2019 Ad Diriyah ePrix , width="30%", Diriyah ePrix , width="35%", Next race:
2022 Diriyah ePrix , - style="text-align:center" {{DEFAULTSORT:Diriyah ePrix, 2021

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

2020–21 Formula E season 2021 in Saudi Arabian sport February 2021 sports events in Asia