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Wehrlein snatches Mexico City pole in Porsche front-row lockout
Pascal Wehrlein took pole position for the Mexico City E-Prix for the second year in a row as TAG Heuer Porsche locked out the front row of the grid for the first time.
The reigning series champion, who also started on pole in December’s season opener in Sao Paulo, set a 1m10.984s in the final of the head-to-head Duels to beat teammate Antonio Felix da Costa.
Da Costa was quicker in the first sector but lost time in the subsequent two to finish 0.125s adrift of Wehrlein, but complained of “something broken on my rear right” after his flying lap.
En route to the Duels final, Wehrlein topped the first Group session ahead of Oliver Rowland, Sebastien Buemi, and Mitch Evans, before going on to beat Edoardo Mortara – handed a reprieve after Buemi was excluded for a tire pressure infringement – and Rowland, who’s semifinal Duels run was derailed after he ran wide at Turn 16.
Da Costa finished the second Group session fourth behind Maximilian Guenther, Jake Dennis, and Nick Cassidy, who was also excluded for a technical infringement, promoting Jean-Eric Vergne to the final transfer spot in that session.
He then defeated Dennis in a close Quarter Finals Duel where both took a sector each in the first two third of the lap, before Dennis lost time in the stadium section at the end of the lap to finish 0.488 adrift. Wehrlein then beat Vergne to set up the all-Porsche final.
Wehrlein’s pole was not only his second of the season and his second in a row in Mexico City, but his fourth at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, making him the first driver in Formula E history to claim four poles at a single track. It also bodes well for him as in both previous visits to the track in the GEN3 era, the polesitter has not only gone on to win the race, but the championship as well – Dennis doing it in Season 9, and Wehrlein himself doing it last year.
Starting behind both works cars from the German outfit on the grid will be Vergne, with the DS Penske driver starting in the top three in Mexico for the first time since the 2017.
Nissan driver Rowland will line up fourth, ahead of Jaguar TCS Racing’s Mitch Evans, and Guenther, who fell to his DS Penske teammate Vergne in the first part of the Duels. Dennis and Mortara completed the positions of those that advanced to the Duels for Andretti and Mahindra respectively.
Zane Maloney will start ninth for Lola Yamaha Abt ahead of NEOM McLaren's Sam Bird, who was a victim of traffic in the Group stage which prevented him from improving on his time. Nico Mueller will start 13th in the second Andretti entry ahead of Cupra Kiro’s David Beckmann, Maserati MSG’s Stoffel Vandoorne, and Nyck de Vries in the other Mahindra, with Dan Ticktum 15th for Kiro, and Jake Hughes 16th for Maserati.
Lucas di Grassi will start from 17th on the grid in the other Lola, in front of Nissan’s Norman Nato, McLaren’s Taylor Barnard, and Robin Frijns, who was another driver unable to improve his Group stage best due to traffic, while his Envision Racing teammate Buemi will start on the back row of the grid alongside Jaguar driver Cassidy after their exclusions.
Dominik Wilde
Dominik often jokes that he was born in the wrong country – a lover of NASCAR and IndyCar, he covered both in a past life as a junior at Autosport in the UK, but he’s spent most of his career to date covering the sliding and flying antics of the U.S.’ interpretation of rallycross. Rather fitting for a man that says he likes “seeing cars do what they’re not supposed to do”, previously worked for a car stunt show, and once even rolled a rally car with Travis Pastrana. He was also comprehensively beaten in a kart race by Sebastien Loeb once, but who hasn’t been?
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