Vandoorne only needed to finish ahead of Mitch Evans to seal the title after entering the race with a 21-point lead, and his job was made considerably easier as Evans only qualified 13th and had work to do to make up the difference.
But the Belgian continued the imperious form he has shown all year, making no mistake and taking home third to seal the title, which became second when Jake Dennis was slapped with a five second grid penalty for contact with the polesitter. Antonio Felix da Costa in turn 22.
Vandoorne’s title triumph was also complemented by Mercedes’ second successive teams’ title as he closes his three-season foray into Formula E on a high.
Mortara’s victory was the perfect antidote to a difficult stage over the previous three races, although Venturi was unable to challenge for the teams’ title, with the Swiss rider taking the lead phenomenally with a brilliant dive at da Costa at the end of the second. lap – and was followed by Dennis.
He wasted no time in building a lead over Dennis, and the Andretti driver kept it relatively quiet in the early laps of the race. A gap of one second at the end of lap 5 was almost two seconds a few laps later, and it continued to grow until a safety car wiped out their lead.
Maximilian Gunther’s stranded Nissan on the back straight, after the German had suffered steering damage, required a recovery vehicle to pick him up, thus prompting the appearance of the safety car at the halfway mark of the race
After a lengthy safety car, which saw six minutes and 45 seconds of added time at the end of the race, Mortara went out on the lap 19 restart and left Dennis in his wake.
He created enough space to immediately claim his second attack mode to re-establish his comfortable lead, and was aided by da Costa and Dennis coming to blows at Turn 22, where Dennis left the front of his Andretti on the inside and hit the Portuguese driver. on the wall
The incident was quickly investigated and although Mortara was able to extend the gap to over three seconds, Dennis invested his energy into catching up in anticipation of a time penalty.
Dennis received the five-second penalty, which eased the pressure on Mortara and allowed the Geneva-born driver to take victory in his 100th Formula E race.
Vandoorne qualified 3.7s clear of Mortara, with the second more than enough to seal his first championship victory since the GP2 Series in 2015, having moved up a position when da Costa dropped to the back after his skirmish with Dennis.
However, Dennis built up enough distance from Robin Frijns in fourth to take the podium, while Oliver Askew capped an excellent day for Andretti with fifth place, giving the American team sixth place in the teams’ championship, over next year’s engine supplier Porsche.
Jean-Eric Vergne was sixth ahead of Evans, who could only finish seventh after a disappointing qualifying spell was fatal to his slim championship chances.
Nick Cassidy set the fastest lap to finish eighth ahead of Sebastien Buemi, while da Costa recovered from his lap 22 scuffle to finish 10th as Sergio Sette Camara dropped out of the points to weave ahead the replacement for Jaguar Norman Nato.
Lucas di Grassi suffered a puncture and could only finish 11th, considerably shaking the Venturi teams’ title chances, while Alexander Sims recovered from his 60-place grid penalty to end his career in Formula E in 12th grade.