Jajovski immediately threw down the gauntlet and in qualifying and once again looked the man to beat as he flew to a 58.174s lap time, enough for a second consecutive pole position.
Frederik Rasmussen wound up a close second, with Marius Golombeck (TAG Heuer Porsche) third and there was nothing to seperate the top three, with just 0.050 seconds covering them, whilst only half-a-second split the first 18 runners.
As the lights went out, Jajovski darted off the line and immediately over to his right to cover the inside line, with pole position, unusually, sitting on the outside of the circuit in Hong Kong. His defence warded off Rasmussen, with Golombeck all over the back of the Dane through the opening turns. Kevin Siggy (BMW i Andretti Motorsport) meanwhile, had his hands full fending off Graham Carroll (Envision Virgin Racing) and Martin Sefanko (Jaguar Racing).
As in Round 1, North Macedonian Jajovski immediately settled into his stride out front, pulling a 1.2 second gap on Rasmussen with the chasing pack of Golombeck, Siggy, Carroll, Stefanko, Risto Kappet (NIO 333), Nikodem Wisniewski (DS TECHEETAH), Jan von der Heyde (Nissan e.dams) and Olli Pahkala (Mahindra Racing) rounding out the top ten.
Pahkala was among the first to jump through the ATTACK MODE activation zone, and immediately made it count, taking ninth from von der Heyde.
Meanwhile, Race at Home Challenge runner Peyo Peev (DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT) and Marc Gassner (Nissan e.dams) had a coming-together on lap five, with the former suffering damage and the latter later penalised with a drive-through penalty for his overexuberant manoeuvre. It was a shame, as prior to that, Peev had been dicing with Vegas eRace winner Bono Huis (Mercedes-Benz EQ) – the battle catching the eye, albeit for 15th spot.
The front runners followed Pahkala’s lead and took ATTACK MODE a lap later than the Mahindra Racing driver, with the rear half of the field looking like biding their time and holding off. Siggy made the 35kW boost count in an instant with a tidy move on Golombeck for third spot.
Further back, little had changed between the top ten runners with Jajovski holding a cushion of just under two seconds on Rasmussen, with Siggy, Golombeck and Carroll the next trio of runners in-behind and Stefanko, Kappet, Wisniewski, Pahkala and now Petar Brljak (BMW i Andretti Motorsport) a ways back still.
Entering the final 15 minutes, Carroll was the last to complete his first jump through the ATTACK MODE loop and duly made it by Golombeck, slipping up the inside of the German's Porsche at the hairpin and into fourth position – the Scot chipping away again after slipping back early on.
Jajovski and Rasmussen were still split by less than two seconds out front, carefully awaiting one-another’s next move with a little over 10 minutes to run. The Venturi racer was using a little more power than those behind, with the DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT driver behind managing to eke out a couple of percent extra usable energy, which would prove extremely valuable over the final ten minutes.
Stefanko in sixth, Kappet just behind and Pahkala in tow all leapt for their second dose of ATTACK MODE before those around them inside the top ten, with the trio all pushing Golombeck hard for what was now fifth spot. The Jaguar Racing man made his 35kW advantage count to take the spot down the back straight with Golombeck offering little resistance.
The top four of Jajovski, Rasmussen – who had closed within a second of the lead Venturi heading into the final five minutes – Siggy and Carroll had pulled out some clean air between themselves and Stefanko – who had found himself best of the chasing pack.
With the battle heating up as time ebbed away and energy reserves depleted, Jajovksi blinked first with the final ATTACK MODE activation, with Rasmussen, Siggy and Carroll all following suit. Remaining energy had now levelled off, with each of the runners managing percentages well over the distance into the final couple of minutes.
Jajovski was under fire from a feisty-looking Rasmussen over the last two laps but was ultimately able to hold the Dane back. Though his ATTACK MODE slightly overran the leader’s, Rasmussen just couldn’t find a way beyond the unflappable Venturi driver – even with Oliver Rowland urging the DRAGON racer to be rude and forceful to make something stick; from the comfort of the commentary box, of course!
Siggy followed the lead pair home in third, three seconds back, with Carroll, Stefanko, Golombeck, Kappet, Pahkala, Brljak and Wisniewski filling out the points-paying positions.
“At the beginning I created a gap and thought that Rasmussen wasn’t going to be able to close it,” said the race winner. “But towards the end we saw that he was really aggressive on the energy and he was all over me – pressuring me so hard. It was an intense race and I’m really happy with P1.”
A second win on the bounce for Venturi's Jajovski sees both top their respective points tables heading to Berlin's Tempelhof Airport Circuit next Thursday, with the action once again set to get underway at 1900 UTC.