Nicolas Prost snatched victory in round five of the Formula E Championship in Miami after passing Daniel Abt with less than two laps left and then resisting debutant Scott Speed.

Prost went one lap longer than Abt driver before swapping to his second e.dams Spark-Renault SRT_01E mid-race and had more energy than his Abt Sportsline rival for the run to the flag.

The Frenchman overtook Abt into Turn 8 on the penultimate lap, but he didn’t have things all his own way over the remainder of the race.

Speed, who was making his Formula E debut with the Andretti team, was able to follow Prost through on the next straight, but ultimately fell short of victory by a shade over four tenths.

“I was side by side with Daniel as I came out of the pits and let him have the corner because I didn’t want to take a risk,” explained Prost.

“I’d gone a lap longer in my first car and had had to save energy like hell on my last lap, so I always thought that he might start to struggle at the end.”

Abt ended up third, five seconds in arrears, after backing off in order to make the finish, while Jerome d’Ambrosio came through to fourth in his Dragon Racing entry.

Nelson Piquet Jr, who dropped from second to sixth on the grid after taking a five-place penalty for a yellow flag infringement at the previous round, took fifth for China Racing, despite losing a dozen seconds in the pits when his second car failed to start cleanly.

Early-race leader Jean-Eric Vergne failed to finish in his Andretti entry after suffering overheating problems, the same problem that resulted in Lucas di Grassi, who led the championship coming into the US leg of the series, dropping from fifth to ninth in the closing stages.

Sam Bird pushed Vergne for the lead at first before losing ground with a pitstop miscommunication and ending up eighth.

RESULTS – 39 LAPS:

Prost holds off Speed for Miami Formula E win