Mortara misses out on a milestone hat-trick in Mexico City

Edoardo Mortara won the 50th Formula E race, and the 100th, but when the 150th race came around in Mexico City this weekend, he fell short of claiming a unique hat-trick – not for a lack of trying, though.

With an Attack Mode advantage, the Mahindra driver pressured Nick Cassidy late on in the race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, but he was fighting a war on two fronts, fending off Jake Dennis and Oliver Rowland behind him while trying to progress forward.

“They're always very, very stressful, especially towards the end, because you're trying to hold position, especially if you're at the front,” Mortara said. 

It wasn’t just the goings on ahead and behind him, but his own car, too, which threw a wrench into the works.

“A bit unfortunate because the last 10-15 laps we started to suffer from some problems, let's say, and I wasn't able to fully keep with Nick's rhythm,” he said. “Unfortunately, at some point, he managed to create a gap, and that's the reason why, in the end, although I had the Attack Mode, I could not make an attack and overtake him.”

Before the race, brake-by-wire gremlins threatened to force the third placed starter out of the race before it had even begun.

“We were actually lucky to do the race,” he admitted. “Just prior to going to do the start, I had a glitch with my brake-by-wire, so in the end, I guess that I was lucky today.”

The problem didn’t hinder his race in the end, and although the win might have eluded him, after retiring from the season opener in Sao Paulo, Mortara was still happy to come away with a strong result.

“In all fairness, I'm very happy with second place,” he said. “I was struggling with energy [in] the last two, three laps, and I knew that Jake [Dennis] and Oli [Rowland] were coming with more energy. So in the end, [I’m] very happy with today's result.”