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Mexico City E-Prix: Wehrlein wins after post-race investigation

The German was the dominant force in the race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit after starting from pole and leading the majority of the laps in a largely processional affair.

He eventually took victory by just over one second from Envision driver and fellow front-row starter Sebastien Buemi, as Nick Cassidy took a podium on his Jaguar debut.

Reigning champion Jake Dennis could only manage ninth, having suffered a difficult qualifying session which left the Andretti driver 14th on the grid, and like Wehrlein remains under investigation for a technical infringement.

Wehrlein maintained his advantage from pole at the start, while behind, Buemi took to the inside line to prevent Maximilian Guenther from overtaking into Turn 1 with Cassidy, Mitch Evans and Jake Hughes maintaining position off the line.

The first of two Attack Mode activations came as early as lap three for the leaders, with Wehrlein taking two minutes and rejoining behind Buemi, but a lap later the positions were reversed again, with Buemi taking six minutes of Attack Mode.

By lap six, Wehrlein had taken the remaining six minutes of his Attack Mode and once again only lost one position to Buemi before heavily pressuring the Envision driver for the lead.

The front two had started to gap Guenther behind, who had the close attention of Cassidy to deal with as the Kiwi was the only other front-runner apart from Wehrlein to have used both Attack Modes by this point.

Pascal Wehrlein, Porsche, Porsche 99X Electric Gen3, Sebastien Buemi, Envision Racing, Jaguar I-TYPE 6, Mitch Evans, Jaguar Racing, Jaguar I-TYPE 6, Nick Cassidy, Jaguar TCS Racing, Jaguar I-TYPE 6, Jake Hughes, McLaren, e-4ORCE 04, the rest of the field at the start (Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images)

But the race was neutralised on lap nine after Buemi’s Envision team-mate, Robin Frijns, lost control and made heavy contact with the barrier on the exit of T18.

The Dutchman had been trying to recover ground after struggling to get off the line due to a technical problem and a safety car was deployed to recover his stranded machine, which was left across the track.

After three laps under caution, and at the earliest opportunity, Buemi took his remaining Attack Mode and dropped to second, with Cassidy eventually moving up to third as Guenther did the same on lap 15.

By this point, the top nine drivers had used both activations, with Wehrlein holding a lead of almost a second from Buemi, with Cassidy and Guenther in close proximity.

Evans in fifth had started to gradually drop back, though, and the Jaguar driver came under pressure from the DS Penske of Jean-Eric Vergne who had jumped Hughes in the Attack Mode activation phase.

Evans fell to more than 4s behind Guenther and was something of a cork in the bottle for Vergne, Hughes, Stoffel Vandoorne, Dennis and Norman Nato behind.

Despite running nose-to-tail for the second half of the race, which was extended to 37 laps due to the earlier safety car, the top 10 positions remained unchanged until the chequered flag.

Oliver Rowland took 11th on his return with Nissan from team-mate Sacha Fenestraz, the pair heading Edoardo Mortara (Mahindra), Sam Bird (McLaren) and Nyck de Vries (Mahindra) on his Formula E return.

Jehan Daruvala on his first race in Formula E with Maserati MSG was 16th ahead of Abt Cupra’s Nico Muller and ERT’s Dan Ticktum.

As well as Frijns, other retirements included Porsche’s Antonio Felix da Costa, who damaged his suspension on lap three after contact with Muller into Turn 3 – an incident which will be investigated after the race.

Muller’s team-mate Lucas di Grassi was an opening lap retirement after suffering brake problems, while Sergio Sette Camara was unable to start due to technical issues with his ERT machine.

Mexico City E-Prix race results

 
 
       
Driver Info
 
 
 
   
Cla Driver # Laps Time Interval km/h Points Retirement
1 Germany P. Wehrlein Porsche Team 94 37

50'15.506

    28  
2 Switzerland S. Buemi Envision Racing 16 37

+1.162

50'16.668

1.162   18  
3 New Zealand N. Cassidy Jaguar Racing 37 37

+2.079

50'17.585

0.917   16  
4 Germany M. Gunther Maserati Racing 7 37

+5.780

50'21.286

3.701   12  
5 New Zealand M. Evans Jaguar Racing 9 37

+13.064

50'28.570

7.284   10  
6 France J. Vergne DS Penske 25 37

+13.405

50'28.911

0.341   8  
7 United Kingdom J. Hughes McLaren 5 37

+13.916

50'29.422

0.511   6  
8 Belgium S. Vandoorne DS Penske 2 37

+14.392

50'29.898

0.476   4  
9 United Kingdom J. Dennis Andretti Formula E 1 37

+14.767

50'30.273

0.375   2  
10 France N. Nato Andretti Formula E 17 37

+15.312

50'30.818

0.545   1  
11 United Kingdom O. Rowland Nissan e.Dams 22 37

+15.485

50'30.991

0.173      
12 France S. Fenestraz Nissan e.Dams 23 37

+15.718

50'31.224

0.233      
13 Switzerland E. Mortara Mahindra Racing 48 37

+16.214

50'31.720

0.496      
14 United Kingdom S. Bird McLaren 8 37

+20.600

50'36.106

4.386      
15 Netherlands N. de Vries Mahindra Racing 21 37

+23.665

50'39.171

3.065      
16 India J. Daruvala Maserati Racing 18 37

+28.969

50'44.475

5.304      
17 Switzerland N. Müller Team Abt 51 37

+29.424

50'44.930

0.455      
18 United Kingdom D. Ticktum ERT Formula E Team 33 37

+1'14.758

51'30.264

45.334      
dnf Netherlands R. Frijns Envision Racing 4 7

+30 Laps

9'05.320

30 Laps     Retirement
dnf Portugal A. Felix da Costa Porsche Team 13 2

+35 Laps

2'44.344

5 Laps     Retirement
dnf Brazil L. di Grassi Team Abt 11 2

+35 Laps

3'19.539

35.195     Retirement
dns Brazil S. Sette Camara ERT Formula E Team 3 0

 

       
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