Race report
Formula E Mexico City ePrix
Mexico City E-Prix: Wehrlein beats Lotterer in Porsche 1-2
Pascal Wehrlein led home a Porsche 1-2 finish in a thrilling Mexico City E-Prix, beating Andre Lotterer to take his and the German marque's first Formula E victory.
Jake Boxall-Legge
Edited: Feb 14, 2022, 12:49 PM
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Wehrlein had a difficult road to convert his pole position into victory, as Porsche elected to start saving energy early on in the race, losing the lead to championship leader Edoardo Mortara as the Venturi driver grabbed an excellent drive out of the Peraltada to clear the German at Turn 1.
The Porsches then continued to drop back, as Lotterer was mobbed by the DS Techeetah pair prior to Jean-Eric Vergne clearing Wehrlein.
Lotterer re-passed Antonio Felix da Costa after a slight skirmish in the Foro Sol stadium as the multiple Le Mans winner took attack mode.
Wehrlein was then given the hurry-up by his engineer to clear Vergne, as it became apparent that the Porsches had more useable energy than the front-running duo of Mortara and Vergne - a request that Wehrlein complied with a lap later.
That set Wehrlein up with a run on Mortara, who was about two percent down on useable energy, and his play for the lead at the start of lap 28 proved successful - Lotterer following through at Turn 3.
The Porsches then were able to scamper off into the distance, helped by a brilliant battle for third between Vergne, Mortara and Robin Frijns - who made some swashbuckling overtakes to stand in podium contention.
Although Lotterer was bearing down on Wehrlein, the leader was told not to "worry about the car behind" - Lotterer admitting after the race that Porsche had elected to "work as a team" to secure the victory.
Wehrlein crossed the line with one second left on the clock to add an extra lap to the ticker, causing more than a few energy consumption worries for multiple cars behind, but it proved no problem for the Porsches - who enjoyed an excellent crescendo to the race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Vergne won the battle for third, passing Mortara for fourth on lap 36 after the Swiss driver endured a big lock-up and allowed the Techeetah duo to trickle past.
The Frenchman then cleared Frijns, who was at an energy disadvantage and dropped back towards the end - losing places to da Costa and Mortara.
Mercedes' Nyck de Vries endured a difficult race, but was able to take advantage of the energy worries of the cars around him to leap up to sixth at the death, also clearing countryman Frijns.
Sebastien Buemi and Maximilian Gunther also benefitted from their competitors' energy woes, which stopped a late-race resurgence from Oliver Rowland and also shuffled Mitch Evans and Sam Bird out of the points.
Jake Dennis had also struggled throughout the weekend, and was sitting in the lower midfield but was able to jump up the order - taking 10th after Lucas di Grassi was handed a five-second time penalty for contact with Vandoorne early on in the race that dropped him to 12th.
Stoffel Vandoorne was another loser in the energy stakes, dropping out of the points - as did Nick Cassidy, who finished 13th despite a second-half streak through the points scorers after taking his attack modes later on compared to his rivals.
Cla Driver Team Laps Time Gap Interval 1 Pascal Wehrlein
Porsche Team 40 47'20.404 2
Andre Lotterer
Porsche Team 40 47'20.706 0.302 0.302 3
Jean-Eric Vergne
Techeetah 40 47'29.455 9.051 8.749 4
Antonio Felix da Costa
Techeetah 40 47'30.379 9.975 0.924 5
Edoardo Mortara
Venturi 40 47'38.760 18.356 8.381 6
Nyck de Vries
Mercedes 40 47'39.424 19.020 0.664 7
Robin Frijns
Virgin Racing 40 47'40.636 20.232 1.212 8
Lucas di Grassi
Venturi 40 47'42.929 22.525 2.293 9
Sébastien Buemi
Nissan e.dams 40 47'43.798 23.394 0.869 10
Maximilian Gunther
Nissan e.dams 40 47'46.901 26.497 3.103 11
Jake Dennis
Andretti Autosport 40 47'47.233 26.829 0.332 12
Stoffel Vandoorne
Mercedes 40 47'47.490 27.086 0.257 13
Nick Cassidy
Virgin Racing 40 47'49.198 28.794 1.708 14
Oliver Turvey
NIO Formula E Team 40 47'53.382 32.978 4.184 15
Sam Bird
Jaguar Racing 40 47'56.081 35.677 2.699 16
Oliver Rowland
Mahindra Racing 40 47'56.451 36.047 0.370 17
Oliver Askew
Andretti Autosport 40 47'56.799 36.395 0.348 18
Dan Ticktum
NIO Formula E Team 40 48'05.011 44.607 8.212 19
Mitch Evans
Jaguar Racing 40 48'22.862 1'02.458 17.851 20
Sergio Sette Camara
Dragon Racing 40 48'41.810 1'21.406 18.948 21
Antonio Giovinazzi
Dragon Racing 21 26'38.045 19 Laps 19 Laps 22
Alexander Sims
Mahindra Racing 1 1'22.334 39 Laps 20 Laps View full results
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