Sebastien Buemi today became the first driver to secure two wins in the FIA Formula E Championship – taking victory on the famous streets of Monte Carlo in the Monaco ePrix.

The Swiss Toyota FIA World Endurance Championship driver won the first ever race of the series to be held in Europe, adding to his previous victory in Punta del Este. It was also the third win for a driver from the e.dams-Renault team, as Nico Prost had come out on top in Miami, thus extending its lead in the teams’ standings.

“To win in Monaco is a great feeling,” said Buemi.

“I knew about this thing of everyone starting on pole and not winning the race, so it was good in the end to finally manage that, especially here as we could see it’s very difficult to overtake. “

Buemi took pole earlier in the day ahead of championship leader Lucas di Grassi, while Jerome D’Ambrosio and Nelson Piquet Jr lapped fast enough to secure spots on the second row.

At the green flag carnage erupted at the first corner with Daniel Abt, Bruno Senna, Jean-Eric Vergne, Loic Duval, Salvador Duran and Vitantonio Liuzzi involved in a crash, while Jaime Alguersuari had already been knocked out before the first corner.

At the restart, a lead group developed consisting of Buemi, with di Grassi on his tail, followed by D’Ambrosio, Piquet, Stephane Sarrazin, Nicolas Prost and Sam Bird.

On lap six, the Piquet made the most of the FanBoost and overtook the D’Ambrosio with a move at Turn 3, to go third. In front, di Grassi stayed in Buemi’s slipstream, but never found the right moment to get past and so decided to pit early on lap 25. The move didn’t work but only by a few hundredths, because Buemi, who had stayed out on track along with Piquet, managed to stay in the lead fending off the attacking move from di Grassi in his Audi Sport ABT car around the outside of the Harbor Hairpin.

In the second stint, di Grassi first tried to stay with Buemi, although he knew the Swiss driver had more energy available, but then had his mirrors full of Piquet with whom he duelled for the lead in the championship. In the end, despite huge efforts from the Long Beach winner, it was di Grassi who came off best in this all-Brazilian battle, crossing the line just over two seconds down on Buemi, while in the closing stages Piquet had to defend from Bird, who tried his utmost to get a foot on the podium at the very last.

Behind the top four, the rest of the points went to D’Ambrosio, Prost, Sarrazin, Charles Pic, Antonio Felix da Costa and Nick Heidfeld, while Scott Speed, eighth at the flag, was dropped back to 12th, right behind Jarno Trulli and ahead of Karun Chandhok.

After seven races, Lucas di Grassi still leads the drivers’ classification on 93 points, four more than Nelson Piquet Jr. Today’s win puts Buemi back in the hunt for the title: the Swiss driver is third on 83 points, six more than team-mate Prost.

The historic venue of Monaco kicked off the European part of the Formula E season. The next round, the DHL Berlin ePrix, takes place in two weeks, on May 23 at Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport.