Nelson Piquet Jr has been crowned as the inaugural FIA Formula E champion after a dramatic final round on the streets of London’s Battersea Park today.

The Brazilian ex-Formula 1 driver fought his way up to seventh place at the checkered flag after only qualifying 16th fastest this morning. He didn’t know when he crossed the start-finish line whether or not he had done enough to clinch the title for his Chinese NEXTEV TCR team.

“I don’t know what to say,” Piquet Jr said.

“Today was very hectic, I needed to keep my calm my whole race. I tried to avoid asking questions of the team, they wouldn’t tell me anything as that was part of our briefing. I didn’t even know I had won it when I crossed the line! It was such a hard moment after qualifying. I had nothing to lose, I just had to push.”

Apart from Piquet, the other hero of the moment was Englishman Sam Bird, who took his second win of the season in front of his home crowd. It was a well-deserved, if not unexpected victory, given that Bird actually took the flag right behind Stephane Sarrazin, but on the slowing down lap, the Venturi driver was informed he had exceeded the permitted energy allowance.

The inevitable penalty dropped him to fifteenth place. Bird’s great day also included setting the fastest race lap.

Even the cleverest of thriller screenwriters could not have come up with such an incident packed script as the one delivered at the eleventh and final round of the season.

A fantastic crowd flocked to Battersea Park: once again today, more than 25,000 spectators packed the grandstands and the eVillage, bringing the total number of people through the gates over the duration of the event from Friday to Sunday, to around the 60,000 mark.

They were treated to two equally thrilling scenarios. The first was the fight for the win, which apart from the two aforementioned drivers, also involved Belgium’s Jerome D’Ambrosio and France’s Loic Duval, who both finished on the podium. The result means that Dragon Racing has finished second in the teams’ championship, right behind newly crowned champions e.dams- Renault.

The second big story of the day was the title fight, with three contenders, Sebastien Buemi, Lucas Di Grassi and Piquet, who went on to cross the line in that order. However, only the last of them was smiling about his finishing position, because the six points that go with seventh place were enough to finish just a single point ahead of Buemi in the classification.

The Swiss driver paid the price for a spin shortly after his pit stop: the mistake meant Bruno Senna got ahead of him to finish fourth, his best result of the season. Senna proved to be an unshakeable opponent for the e.dams-Renault driver, who tried his best in the final few yards to take back the position that would have given him the title.