Pascal Wehrlein secured his and Porsche’s first victory in Formula E by holding off team mate Andre Lotterer in an enthralling Mexico City E-Prix.
The race lead changed hands multiple times throughout the race that ran free from any Safety Car or Full Course Yellow interventions.Wehrlein ultimately prevailed to convert his pole position and secure a memorable first win for his Porsche team with Lotterer finishing less than a second behind his team mate. Jean-Eric Vergne finished on the podium in third for Techeetah.
When the lights went out at the start, Wherlein held onto the lead of the race from pole with an aggressive move to cover the inside and prevent Mortara from having a look up the inside into the first corner. Antonio Felix da Costa hit the wall on the exit of turn four on the second lap, but was able to continue having apparently suffered minimal damage.
Lotterer and Mortar were the first drivers to activate their first attack mode through the stadium section, with Wehrlein following in kind on the next lap. Despite the leading pair both being on their attack mode, Mortara was able to get a major run on the Porsche along the pit straight and pull alongside Wehrlein, taking the lead into the first turn.
Jean-Eric Vergne jumped up to third place with a brave move up the inside of Lotterer at the hairpin, with Vergne’s Techeetah team mate Da Cosa then following through to demote Lotterer to fifth. Vergne then passed Werhlein to take second place, but when Wehrlein then opted to take his second attack mode, he was clipped by Da Costa, which dislodged his left-front wheel cover and costing him multiple positions in the process.
With Vergne suffering from severe radio communication problems, the Techeetha driver lost three places in a single lap, being passed by Werhlein, then Lotterer and then Robin Frijns to demote him to fifth place. Having passed Vergne for second, Wehrlein set about catching Mortara out front and was on the leader’s tail within two laps.
Using his greater energy level over Mortara to his advantage, Wehrlein drove past the Venturi along the pit straight to take the lead of the race. Soon after, Lotterer dove to the inside of Mortara to move ahead of him and make it a Porsche one-two with just under 15 minutes of race time remaining.
The leading Porsches began to pull a significant gap to the chasing pack, with Lotterer keeping in touch with his team mate. The team asked their two drivers to hold position and secure the win, which Lotterer obliged.
However, the two Porsches crossed the timing line to begin a new lap with only one second of race time remaining – meaning that all drivers would have to complete two more laps rather than just the single lap had Wehrlein crossed the line one second later. That was of no concern to the Porsches who had ample energy remaining, but ruined the races of the Jaguars of Mitch Evans and Sam Bird and the Mahindra of Oliver Rowland, who had all used up too much energy in anticipating the race would finish a lap earlier.
Wehrlein crossed the line to secure his and Porsche’s first E-Prix victory, with Lotterer less than a second behind. Vergne finished third to take the final podium place, with team mate Da Costa taking fourth. Mortara took fifth, with Mercedes’ Nyck de Vries finishing sixth. Robin Frijns, Sebastien Buemi, Maximilian Guenther and Jake Dennis rounded out the points. Lucas di Grassi fell from seventh to 12th after receiving a five second time penalty for contact with De Vries and Stoffel Vandoorne.
Edoardo Mortara maintains a five point lead at the top of the championship over Nyck de Vries after three races.
Provisional race results
| Position | Driver | Team |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pascal Wehrlein | Porsche |
| 2 | Andre Lotterer | Porsche |
| 3 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Techeetah |
| 4 | Antonio Felix da Costa | Techeetah |
| 5 | Edoardo Mortara | Venturi |
| 6 | Nyck de Vries | Mercedes |
| 7 | Robin Frijns | Envision |
| 8 | Sebastien Buemi | Nissan Edams |
| 9 | Max Guenther | Nissan Edams |
| 10 | Jake Dennis | Andretti |
| 11 | Stoffel Vandoorne | Mercedes |
| 12 | Lucas di Grassi | Venturi |
| 13 | Nick Cassidy | Envision |
| 14 | Oliver Turvey | Nio |
| 15 | Sam Bird | Jaguar |
| 16 | Oliver Rowland | Mahindra |
| 17 | Oliver Askew | Andretti |
| 18 | Dan Ticktum | Nio |
| 19 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar |
| 20 | Sergio Sette Camara | Dragon Penske |
| 21 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Dragon Penske |
| DNF | Alexander Sims | Mahindra |
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Formula E
- Wehrlein wins second Misano race after Rowland’s last lap heartache
- Da Costa disqualified from first Misano race, handing Rowland win
- Da Costa becomes sixth different winner in six rounds in first Misano race
- Aron and Eriksson to replace WEC-bound Buemi and Frijns at Envision in Berlin
- Guenther wins in Tokyo after Rowland gives up the lead
Browse all Formula E articles
playstation361
13th February 2022, 0:25
I did not expect Rowland to be very slow this time.
Duncan Idaho (@didaho)
13th February 2022, 7:58
The leader crossed the start finish line a couple of seconds before 45minutes had elapsed adding a lap to the race that Rowland, Evan and Bird hadn’t allowed for / couldn’t afford so they lost about 10 places.
The cars looked really good on that track where it was left open and some of the driving was pretty epic – qually in particular saw some great drifting.
I wish they’d control the urge to make canyons of advertising out of tracks – pretty sure no-one rushes out to buy a switchboard due to the 426th ‘ABB’ they see.
playstation361
13th February 2022, 8:49
The FE practice graphic, music and voice was fantastic on the official Youtube channel. I hope these things get better.
thegamer23
13th February 2022, 9:15
Best race of the season so far and one of the best races of FE in the recent years.
Cars looked great around Mexico
theRealMax (@millionus)
13th February 2022, 11:15
2nd enjoyable race in a row for me. The attack mode I’m liking as does add to the strategy well. Fan boost seems too random. But hope the racing stays as close as the last few races and I’ll keep watching.
Antz (@antznz)
13th February 2022, 9:46
I’d love to watch FE but they’ve paywalled it. How is that a good idea for a newish series trying to build its fan base? Or do they feel like they’ve already peaked in popularity? Is there a big fan base somewhere i don’t see? Based on the number of comments here, there don’t seem many watching… I’m not surprised they’re losing manufacturers if so few people see their success.
thegamer23
13th February 2022, 11:00
Maybe beacause most of the people here in racefans comes for F1 news only!
There were 40K fans in Mexico, and the stands where packed.
Sold out is expected in Rome too.
I’d say FE audience is comparable if not bigger than most of the european series besides F1 & MotoGP obviously.
TV ratings & demand are also getting higher each season, that’s why they’re going behind paywalls.
Manufacturers come & go, Maserati is joining next season.
Mr David Dewis (@davehaslanded)
13th February 2022, 20:35
In the UK, the Hour long highlights package is now on Channel 4. My guess is you could watch it with a VPN. They’ve got a fairly good knowledge of motorsport coverage over the years, having hosted the Formula 1 for years before it went to SKY
playstation361
13th February 2022, 10:19
This electric thing is a bit new.
It takes time for new things to develop.
I think we cannot compare this electric with other.
I see some decision makers want this to go ahead more.
Roger Ayles (@roger-ayles)
13th February 2022, 12:58
I thought they were going to drop that fan boost gimmick, Sure I saw that reported here in one of the round-ups last year.
And have they made the attack mode gimmick more powerful this year as it seemed to be working like a very powerful DRS & just driving people past with ease in highway passes that are just as boring & devoid of any excitement as your average DRS joke pass.
Nick Cassidy for example easily cruised from 13th to 6th with the attack mode gimmick only to then quickly plummet back to 13th once it ended. It’s a completely pointless & artificial gimmick which should have been kept in mario kart, f-zero or whatever game they stole it from.
It’s a shame as it would probably be watchable without the gimmicks & a bit of development freedom on the chassis. It’s a world championship now so they need to start opening things up more in order to look like a world championship rather than just another lesser junior spec series. That would help them grow as non-spec series are always better than the boring spec ones.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
13th February 2022, 13:38
@roger-ayles
It was definitely never confirmed, though I remember Reigle saying it was being considered, possibly for the third generation cars coming next year.
I enjoyed yesterday’s race on the whole, though I’m not keen on the time-limited format, I’d rather they went back to a set number of laps, makes it a bit of a lottery.
I was sure Lotterer was going to send one up the inside of Wehrlein at one point, he was clearly thinking about it…
JC
13th February 2022, 20:10
Enjoyed the race; Porsche wanting to show their 40 lap strategy dominance added the extra edge to it. The cars were 3 or 4 wide at parts of the circuit!
Dan Ticktum still hanging around at the back of the grid. Best place for him.
Mr David Dewis (@davehaslanded)
13th February 2022, 20:38
This is the first Formula E Grand Prix i have watched that felt like a grown up race. The wider track provides so many more racing opportunities and added even more weight to the idea that FE needs to move to proper race tracks over street circuits.
Ronny
14th February 2022, 22:55
Still i don’t understand why they Chose Bottas over Wehrlein.. And why Hamilton didn’t stand up for Wehrlein.. I guess BLM wasn’t cool back then..