Written by Olly Radley, edited by Harshi Vashee
While the enthralling season opener in Diriyah was nothing to complain about, we were not left disappointed by the Mexico City E-Prix. After 45 minutes and 1 extra lap of uninterrupted brilliance, Porsche will return to Germany with their first ever win, which came as a part of a craftful 1-2 finish. Race winner Pascal Wehrlein finally took his elusive first win, which he’s narrowly missed out on twice before in Mexico, followed shortly after by teammate Andre Lotterer, who took a maiden Formula E podium for Porsche.
The lead was passed around between multiple drivers throughout the E-Prix, with Mortara initially looking the favourite as Wehrlein began to slip out of contention, only to come back with his teammate to run away with the E-Prix. The Porsche boys pulled off 2 double overtakes for 2nd and then later 1st, displaying a tremendous amount of team effort on their way to the 1-2.
It was 2-by-2 in the top 4, with the DS Techeetahs finishing in 3rd and 4th; Vergne ahead of Da Costa. Techeetah found themselves intertwined with the action-packed squabble for the podium places throughout the race, reigning victorious over their rivals at the chequered flag, with a podium for 2-time champion, Jean-Eric Vergne.
Championship leader Edo Mortara had a helta-skelta race, at one point leading quite comfortably having taken the lead from Wehrlein after the first round of attack mode. The Swissman would later fall foul to a perfectly executed double overtake by Porsche as well as Robin Frijns sneaking through up to 3rd at the time. The Techeetahs then both slipped past Mortara, with a consolation overtake on Frijns giving him 5th. Edo’s teammate, Lucas di Grassi, who has previously won the Mexico City race twice, found himself in and around the points throughout, finishing 8th at the end of the race, profiting from an energy miscalculation from the Jaguars and Mahindra. Di Grassi did, however, cross the line with 0% energy, warranting him a 5-second penalty, demoting the Brazilian to 12th.
The aforementioned Robin Frijns was constantly amidst the rough battle for 3rd-7th, making some incredible moves on Mortara and Vergne, eventually finishing at the latter part of that fight down in 7th having ran as high as 3rd in the race. His teammate, Nick Cassidy, was placed on an odd strategy from Envision where the New Zealander didn’t take his first attack mode until there were 20 minutes left, which initially carried him to 6th before a late surge from the drivers behind demoted him down and out of the points.
Nyck de Vries didn’t seem to be anywhere during the race but profited from the midfielders’ energy miscalculation, moving from 12th to 6th towards the end, just about keeping him towards the top of the championship after the 3rd round. Another team that were lucky with the midfielders’ misfortune were Nissan e.dams, who nabbed a double points score of 8th and 9th on the final lap, with Jake Dennis rounding off the points after a weekend in which Andretti seemed to have no pace.
Final Results
Pascal Wehrlein, Porsche
Andre Lotterer, Porsche
Jean-Eric Vergne, Techeetah
Antonio Felix da Costa, Techeetah
Edoardo Mortara, Venturi
Nyck De Vries, Mercedes
Robin Frijns, Envision
Sebastien Buemi, Nissan e.dams
Maximillian Gunther, Nissan e.dams
Jake Dennis, Andretti
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