Jake Dennis clinched the Formula E title with one race to spare in an at times farcical first race of the London E-Prix weekend at the ExCeL that featured two red flags and the implosion of Envision Racing and Nick Cassidy’s title hopes.

Dennis sealed the crown after finishing third on the road, which became second post-race, behind Jaguar’s Mitch Evans – whose victory, from a penalised sixth on the grid having been fastest in qualifying, was not enough to prolong the fight to the final race of the season on Sunday.

Envision got the dream scenario it needed at the start of the race when Sebastien Buemi launched well enough to hang his car around the outside of second-place starter Dennis into Turn 1 and make a move stick, via slight front-left to front-right contact, out of the Turn 2 switchback and slot into second behind Cassidy.

While the pack remained largely together in the opening laps Buemi then allowed a big enough gap – 2.7 seconds – to build between Cassidy and himself for Cassidy to be able to take attack mode on lap seven of an initially planned 36 laps for the first time and stay in the lead.

Cassidy took attack mode for a second time a lap later and it was in this phase he surrendered the lead, dropping to third behind Buemi and Evans – up to third courtesy of a move on Dan Ticktum at the start, another on Rene Rast on lap four and a bold pass on Dennis’s inside on lap seven.

At this point Envision’s race started to unravel. Still behind Buemi, Cassidy was caught out by Dennis who made enough space for himself to sneak back up into third up the inside into the final corner, though both drivers were passed on the straight by McLaren driver Rast.

Cassidy got the position back again with a well-orchestrated move that started at Turn 1, aided by Buemi – now behind Rast – backing Dennis up, which prompted the Andretti driver to exclaim “I need a wingman….where the f*** is Pascal?” in reference to Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein, in sixth at this point and all but mathematically out of the title fight.

Cassidy then launched an overtake attempt on Buemi but his team-mate did not cede and, having run side-by-side through the opening corners, Buemi then clipped the left side of Cassidy’s front wing with his car as he took the racing line for the Turn 4 right-hander, with Cassidy’s wing collapsing and blocking his front-left corner.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?

Nick Cassidy loses his front wing and is forced to pit after colliding with teammate Buemi