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Motorsport

Sport

Mexico City E-Prix: Porsche's Wehrlein under investigation after winning FE opener

Porsche Sebastien Buemi Pascal Wehrlein Cassidy Maximilian Guenther Mexico City Jake Hughes Mitch Evans Nico Muller Jaguar

The German started from pole and led the majority of the laps in a largely processional affair at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit.

He took victory by just over one second from Envision driver and fellow front row starter Buemi, as 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 is under investigation for a technical infringement.

Wehrlein maintained his advantage from pole at the start, while 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, 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.

Pascal Wehrlein, Porsche, Porsche 99X Electric Gen3, Sebastien Buemi, Envision Racing, Jaguar I-TYPE 6, Maximilian Gunther, Maserati Racing, Maserati Tipo Folgore, the rest of the field through the stadium (Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images)

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 attentions 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.

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	P. Wehrlein Porsche Team	94	37	50'15.506
2	S. Buemi Envision Racing	16	37	+1.162 50'16.668	1.162
3	N. Cassidy Jaguar Racing	37	37	+2.079 50'17.585	0.917
4	M. Gunther Maserati Racing	7	37	+5.780 50'21.286	3.701
5	M. Evans Jaguar Racing	9	37	+13.064 50'28.570	7.284
6	J. Vergne DS Penske	25	37	+13.405 50'28.911	0.341
7	J. Hughes McLaren	5	37	+13.916 50'29.422	0.511
8	S. Vandoorne DS Penske	2	37	+14.392 50'29.898	0.476
9	J. Dennis Andretti Formula E	1	37	+14.767 50'30.273	0.375
10	N. Nato Andretti Formula E	17	37	+15.312 50'30.818	0.545
11	O. Rowland Nissan e.dams	22	37	+15.485 50'30.991	0.173
12	S. Fenestraz Nissan e.dams	23	37	+15.718 50'31.224	0.233
13	E. Mortara Mahindra Racing	48	37	+16.214 50'31.720	0.496
14	S. Bird McLaren	8	37	+20.600 50'36.106	4.386
15	N. de Vries Mahindra Racing	21	37	+23.665 50'39.171	3.065
16	J. Daruvala Maserati Racing	18	37	+28.969 50'44.475	5.304
17	N. Müller Team Abt	51	37	+29.424 50'44.930	0.455
18	D. Ticktum ERT Formula E Team	33	37	+1'14.758 51'30.264	45.334
dnf	R. Frijns Envision Racing	4	7	+30 Laps 9'05.320	30 Laps			Retirement
dnf	A. Felix da Costa Porsche Team	13	2	+35 Laps 2'44.344	5 Laps			Retirement
dnf	L. di Grassi Team Abt	11	2	+35 Laps 3'19.539	35.195			Retirement
dns	S. Sette Camara ERT Formula E Team	3	0
View full results