Marrakech E-Prix: Mortara wins to take Formula E points lead

The Swiss driver collected his third victory of the season in a tentative Morocco encounter, where hot conditions ensured that teams were seeking to stave off the threat of overheating batteries - and thus precipitated an uncharacteristically early trade of attack modes among the front-runners.

Mortara had preserved his second place on the grid off the line, having a fleeting look at the inside of da Costa at the start before the DS Techeetah driver closed him off.

The Techeetah squad appeared to try and clear its pair of three-minute attack modes early on, on both occasions providing Mortara with the lead.

After the first Techeetah activations on lap 5, Mortara followed them onto the Turn 3 attack mode zone a lap later, conceding the lead back to da Costa - who largely chained his attack modes together when taking another dose of 250kW on lap eight.

But this time, Mortara hung on for an extra lap before taking his second, which yielded enough of a gap over da Costa to go off-line for his hit of extra power and return in the lead.

Edoardo Mortara, Venturi Racing, Silver Arrow 02

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

From there, the Venturi driver began to preserve his lead, as the Techeetahs squabbled with Mitch Evans and a rapid Oliver Rowland - who had hurled his Mahindra into the upper reaches of the field early on in the race.

But it became clear that Jean-Eric Vergne was preserving his energy for a late push and, after dropping to sixth at one stage, began to rise back through the ranks to return to third - with da Costa ahead.

With Vergne in the championship hunt, Techeetah swapped the cars around. Vergne had an extra 2% of battery charge over Mortara and was encouraged to use it to close in - but was unable to