Edoardo Mortara has launched himself up into championship contention as the ROKiT Venturi driver played the perfect strategy to seal his first victory of the season at the Puebla E-Prix.
Following the frustration of his disqualification yesterday, Pascal Wehrlein fought hard to finish second, ahead of Envision Virgin’s Nick Cassidy. However, the German driver is under investigation for energy overuse.
Once again, the left-hand side of the track proved to be the better side, with pole-sitter Oliver Rowland getting a good start as Mortara overtook Wehrlein for second into Turn 1.
However, it was the Attack Mode strategy that proved to be the defining factor for the second race this weekend. Rowland opted for the aggressive strategy and used both boosts within the first 12 minutes of the race, but dropped down to third as a result.
This promoted Mortara to the race lead and despite dropping back to third at one point, the Swiss driver was able to capitalise on his on track position and push himself into the race lead.
Pulling a 1.9 second gap 11 laps in enabled the ROKiT Venturi driver to activate his second Attack Mode and still come out ahead of Rowland, a move that would prove to be decisive.
Behind him, the duel for second between Rowland and Wehrlein continued. However, the Nissan e.dams could not hold Wehrlein off forever, as the British driver made a mistake at Turn 10 and clipped the inside wall which enabled the Porsche driver to pass him for second place and begin hunting down Mortara.
As the clock ticked down, Mortara was able to keep a steady head as Wehrlein drove right on his tail. However, nothing could stop him from bringing home the first victory of the season for the Monaco-based team. They would be joined on the podium by Cassidy, who fought his way up from eighth to take the first podium of his rookie campaign.
Despite his best efforts, Rowland was forced to settle for fourth as Dennis led the way for BMW i Andretti in fifth. Mahindra’s Alex Lynn managed to hold off a charging Maximillian Guenther to finish in sixth.
Jean-Eric Vergne will be ruing his mistake, after a spin at Turn 9 during the middle of the race dropped him from fifth to eighth.
Jaguar’s Mitch Evans started the race in 18th place, but was able to cross the line in ninth in front of yesterday’s second-place finisher Rene Rast.
Former championship leader Robin Frijns put in strong performance to get up to 11th, ahead of Jaguar’s Sam Bird who drove the race with damage after Lucas di Grassi collided with him and knocked him into the side of Sebastien Buemi and Mercedes EQ’s Stoffel Vandoorne.
Nyck de Vries was forced to retire following a collision with di Grassi heading into Turn 9. Other retirees included the second ROKiT Venturi of Norman Nato, NIO 333’s Oliver Turvey, Mahindra’s Alexander Sims who pulled into the run-off area at Turn 1 after storming his way through field, and DS Techeetah’s Antonio Felix da Costa after he made contact with the wall at Turn 7 towards the end of the race.
Mortara’s victory and podium yesterday has seen the 34-year-old seize the Drivers’ Championship lead on 72 points, 10 points clear of Frijns in second.
Mercedes EQ continue to lead the way in the Teams’ Championship despite their failure to score any points today. However, the gap to DS Techeetah in second has closed up to only three points.
The North American leg of the 2020-21 ABB Formula E World Championship will continue with the New York City E-Prix on July 10th and 11th.
[motorsport_result id=’66540′]
