Paul Jeffrey
Premium
The Formula E field headed to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez this weekend - and a thrilling race ensued!
With the championship already hotting up even at this early stage of the season, it would be a dramatic race at the Formula E layout of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit in Mexico City, eventually falling the way of season 3 champion Lucas di Grassi, thanks to a bold last lap overtake of the battery power hindered Mahindra of ex-F1 star Pascal Wehrlein.
Di Grassi, 34, would be the ultimate beneficiary of a tense and incident packed EPrix in Mexico on Saturday afternoon, performing flawlessly for the Team Abt squad as he applied race long pressure on Formula E rookie Wehrlein, eventually forcing the young German into a mistake on the final lap that saw the Mahindra driver straightline turn three before eventually rejoining the circuit just ahead of his rival, only to find himself running out of battery power on the drag to the finish line, allowing di Grassi to nip ahead by a car length to record his first race victory of the season.
Unfortunately for Wehrlein, despite losing the race victory in literally the final few meters, the German would then suffer a post race sanction for his track cutting exploits, earning himself a five second time penalty that would drop his down to sixth in the final results.
Wehrlein's loss would be Edoardo Mortara's gain, with the demotion of the Mahindra driver promoting Mortara to the final step of the podium, just behind runner up Antonio Felix de Costa and ahead of arguably the star of the race - Jerome d’Ambrosio, who took a hard fought fourth place finish after storming his way through the field from a disappointing 19th on the starting grid.
The race itself would be one of self preservation for much of the field, with plenty of action and contract throughout the grid - the most spectacular of which would no doubt go to Nelson Piquet Jr and Jean-Eric Vergne. During the early stages of the race the two experienced rivals would come together when fighting in the lower reaches of the top ten, resulting in a spectacular accident as Piquet made contact with the rear of the defending Jean-Eric Vergne, shooting into the air and clipping the rear of Alexander Sims.
The resultant debris spread across the circuit would ultimately cause the race to be red flagged for over half an hour, before the field reformed minus the unlucky trio for another shot at putting on a show for the Mexican crowd.
Part two would see Wehrlein resume the event from the front of the pack, however the German would be closely shadowed by Williams reserve Oliver Rowland and di Grassi, before the Brazilian former champion used all his skill and experience to outfox Rowland and resume the fight for the race victory, one he would take in the very closing seconds of a race that had plenty of action from start to finish.
Sadly for series rookie Rowland, his strong showing would eventually come to nothing as the Englishman ground to a halt in the final moments, joining fellow driver Sebastien Buemi in running out of battery energy on the penultimate lap - eventually classifying outside the points in 22nd and 23rd place respectively.
Oh and guess what? I avoided spoilers too! You're welcome
Provisional Race Results
- Lucas di Grassi
- Antonio Felix da Costa
- Edoardo Mortara
- Jérôme d'Ambrosio
- Andre Lotterer
- Pascal Wehrlein
- Mitch Evans
- Felipe Massa
- Sam Bird
- Daniel Abt
- Robin Frijns
- Oliver Turvey
- Jean-Eric Vergne
- Alexander Sims
- Tom Dillmann
- Gary Paffett
- Jose Maria Lopez
- Stoffel Vandoorne
- Felipe Nasr
- Oliver Rowland
- Sébastien Buemi
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