by Linus O'Howell
Pascal Wehrlein drove a superb race to gift TAG Heuer Porsche the first win of Season 10 of ABB FIA Formula E. Wehrlein finished just over a second ahead of Envision Racing’s Sebastien Buemi whilst Nick Cassidy rounded out the podium for Jaguar TCS Racing.
The Most Notable Moments
After Sergio Sette Camara was unable to take the start due to technical issues, Season 10 got underway with Pascal Wehrlein leading out of Turn 1 whilst Envision’s Robin Frijns lost around 7 places at the start.
📸 Robin Frijns endured a poor start.
Lucas di Grassi was then out on the first lap after his brakes failed whilst Antonio Felix da Costa and Nico Muller came together after da Costa attempted a way too optimistic overtake (which ultimately saw the Season 6 Champion retire from the E-Prix).
We then saw most of the leading cars beside Maximilian Gunther activate their first Attack Mode before the full Safety Car was brought out (after an original Full Course Yellow) due to Frijns binning it in the wall in the stadium section. When the race restarted, it was Sebastien Buemi who lead from Wehrlein, but that quickly changed when Buemi activated Attack Mode later on around the lap.
📸 Buemi led a portion of the race.
Elsewhere, Jean-Eric Vergne was pilling the pressure on the Jaguar of Mitch Evans whilst the other Jaguar TCS Racing car of Nick Cassidy was able to clear Gunther to move up into the podium places.
Unfortunately, not much else happened and this was a surprisingly 'dull' race for Formula E which ended when Porsche’s Wehrlein took the chequered flag first whilst Nissan’s Oliver Rowland just missed out on a spot in the points by just under 2 tenths.
Drivers who Impressed
There’s no doubt that Pascal Wehrlein was the most impressive driver in Mexico City, looking calm and quick throughout and ultimately securing a massive 28 points in the process (25 for the win +3 for pole position). However, I was also impressed with the pace of Sebastien Buemi, Max Gunther, and Jake Hughes respectively whilst Nick Cassidy will be very pleased to have started his journey with Jaguar up on the podium!
📸 Pascal Wehrlein is aiming high thi: season.
Drivers who Struggled
Antonio Felix da Costa and Robin Frijns were definitely the drivers that least impressed me during Round 1 as da Costa punted Muller around whilst attempting a pretty stupid overtake whilst Frijns found himself in the wall for the second straight year in Mexico City. Dan Ticktum also had a pretty poor race, but I don’t think that was necessarily his fault whilst Jehan Daruvala probably should’ve done better on debut.
📸 Daruvala will hope to get up to speed before too long.
Overall Race Results
1. Pascal Wehrlein: Winner 2. Sebastien Buemi: +1.162 3. Nick Cassidy: +2.079 4. Maximilian Gunther: +5.780 5. Mitch Evans +13.064 6. Jean-Eric Vergne: +13.405 7. Jake Hughes: +13.916 8. Stoffel Vandoorne: +14.392 9. Jake Dennis: +14.767 10.Norman Nato: +15.312 11. Oliver Rowland: +15.485 12. Sacha Fenestraz: +15.718 13. Edoardo Mortara: +16.214 14. Sam Bird: +20.600 15. Nyck de Vries: +23.665
16. Jehan Daruvala: +28.969 17. Nico Muller: +29.424 17. Dan Ticktum: +1:14.758
DNF: Robin Frijns (Crash), Lucas di Grassi (Brake Failure), Antonio Felix da Costa (Collision)
DNS: Sergio Sette Camara (Technical Issues)
📸 Image credits: ABB FIA Formula E, Maserati MSG Racing, Envision Racing.
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