Mexico City E-Prix: Wehrlein heads FP2 after Dennis lap deleted

A lairy end to the session resulted in a number of changes at the top of the timing sheets but, once the music stopped, Wehrlein ended the session with a 1m13.496s on a cold morning at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

The session began just after sunrise in Mexico City, with early trepidation from the drivers as they waited for the track conditions to come to them.

That preceded a flurry of more competitive times, with Dan Ticktum the first to break into the 1m15s with a 1m15.514s.

Sam Bird then produced a yellow flag in the Foro Sol complex with an electronics issue, but was able to complete a full reset to bring his Jaguar back to the pitlane.

Antonio Felix da Costa put his Porsche on top with a 1m15.231s, followed by Oliver Rowland as the Mahindra driver atoned for his Friday practice crash to go up to second.

The times then continued to fall, and Pascal Wehrlein overcame his new Porsche team-mate with a 1m14.427s, and then raised the bar with a 1m13.987s.

Jake Dennis, Andretti Autosport, Porsche 99 X Electric Gen3 (Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images)

Rookie Jake Hughes then found a 1m13.658s to get clear of Wehrlein's headliner, continuing to impress in his first Formula E sessions, as Andretti's Jake Dennis got within 0.035s of his namesake to go second fastest ahead of the halfway point of FP2.

Edoardo Mortara clipped the wall with the rear of his car at the Peraltada while on a hot lap, breaking his left-rear suspension in a near carbon copy of Rene Rast's incident on Friday.

With fewer than five minutes on the clock, Mitch Evans ended Hughes' lengthy stranglehold over the session with a 1m13.548s, but the Kiwi's tenure at the top was considerably shorter as Sergio Sette Camara pasted his NIO 333 to the top of the timing boards with a 1m13.506s.

Ticktum would have dispatched his team-mate after setting the best first and third sectors, but an iffy middle portion of the lap put paid to those chances.

Wehrlein then edged Sette Camara by 0.010s as the session drew to a close to go top, and although Dennis fired in a 1m13.137s at the flag to claim top spot over the Porsche driver, the Briton's lap was chalked off for track limits.

Vergne split the already-tiny gap between Wehrlein and Sette Camara to grab second on the timing boards, continuing to show impressive pace on board the DS Penske.

Evans was fourth to give Jaguar hope after a difficult session, ahead of reigning champion Stoffel Vandoorne, while Hughes and Dennis collected sixth and seventh.

Sebastien Buemi placed his Envision in eighth, clear of da Costa by 0.026s, while Mahindra's Lucas di Grassi completed the top 10.

Mortara only placed 19th after his visit to the outer Peraltada wall, while Bird got out at the end of the session for a cursory run after spending much of the half-hour practice waylaid in the pits - but propped up the timing boards.

Mexico City E-Prix - FP2 results:

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Pascal Wehrlein	Porsche Team	1'13.496
2	Jean-Eric Vergne	DS Penske	1'13.500	0.004
3	Sergio Sette Camara	NIO 333 Racing	1'13.506	0.010
4	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	1'13.548	0.052
5	Stoffel Vandoorne	DS Penske	1'13.611	0.115
6	Jake Hughes	NEOM McLaren Formula E Team	1'13.615	0.119
7	Jake Dennis	Andretti Autosport	1'13.632	0.136
8	Sébastien Buemi	Virgin Racing	1'13.684	0.188
9	Antonio Felix da Costa	Porsche Team	1'13.710	0.214
10	Lucas di Grassi	Mahindra Racing	1'13.717	0.221
11	Dan Ticktum	NIO 333 Racing	1'13.780	0.284
12	Norman Nato	Nissan Formula E Team	1'13.795	0.299
13	Nick Cassidy	Virgin Racing	1'13.932	0.436
14	Sacha Fenestraz	Nissan Formula E Team	1'14.004	0.508
15	Andre Lotterer	Andretti Autosport	1'14.166	0.670
16	Maximilian Gunther	Maserati MSG Racing	1'14.268	0.772
17	René Rast	NEOM McLaren Formula E Team	1'14.361	0.865
18	Oliver Rowland	Mahindra Racing	1'14.538	1.042
19	Edoardo Mortara	Maserati MSG Racing	1'14.641	1.145
20	Nico Müller	ABT CUPRA Formula E Team	1'15.378	1.882
21	Robin Frijns	ABT CUPRA Formula E Team	1'15.526	2.030
22	Sam Bird	Jaguar Racing	1'19.855	6.359
View full results