Pascal Wehrlein took his and Porsche’s first victory in Formula E, with his teammate Andre Lotterer making it a 1-2 at the Mexico City E-Prix.
Wehrlein started on pole and dropped into third at one point, but a shrewd energy strategy saw both him and Lotterer take the top two positions as others faltered.
Jean-Eric Vergene finished third after starting fourth, with his teammate Antonio Felix da Costa behind him. Edoardo Mortara led for much of the race but fell back to fifth as he needed to save energy.
Nyck de Vries came home sixth, but was as low as 12th with just a few minutes remaining. He rose up through the field as cars in front, including both Jaguars and Mahindra’s Oliver Rowland, misculated how much energy they’d need to complete the race.
Robin Frijns finished seventh after running as high as third. Nissan’s Sebastien Buemi and Maximillian Gunther took eighth and ninth, scoring Nissan’s first points of the season. Jake Dennis rounded out the top 10 in tenth.
Stoffel Vandoorne finished 11th in a disappointing showing for the Belgian. Lucas di Grassi took 12th, with Nick Cassidy in 13th. The Kiwi used an alternative energy strategy of taking Attack Mode late on in the race, but it didn’t work out for the Envision driver, who had to save energy in the last few minutes.
Oliver Turvey took 14th in a good showing for Nio 333. Sam Bird took 15th for Jaguar, with energy troubles meaning he lost the progress he’d made up into the points. Oliver Rowland finished 16th with the same issues.
Oliver Askew took 17th, with Dan Ticktum in 18th. Mitch Evans faced the same energy problem as his Jaguar teammate. Sergio Sette Camara rounded out the last of the runners.
Antonio Giovinazzi retired with technical issues halfway into the race. Alexander Sims stopped on track early on after his Mahindra lost drive — his second retirement in as many races.
In the championship, Mortara still leads on 43 points. De Vries is second, six points behind, with Wehrlein, Lotterer and di Grassi all equal on 30 points.
In the teams championship, Venturi lead by eight points over Mercedes, 73 to 65. Porsche are a further five points back on 60.
The next Formula E race takes place in Rome on 9th-10th April double header weekend.
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