The Round 8 of Formula E-Prix was held at the CBMM Niobium Puebla E-Prix. Lucas di Grassi took the race win for Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler followed by his teammate Rene Rast. Edo Mortara of Rokit Venturi Racing rounded out the podium with his P3 finish. Robin Frijns still remains at the top of the driver’s championship table. Just four points differentiate the top five drivers at the championship table. Pascal Wehrlein of Tag Heuer Porsche was disqualified post race due to a technical infringement of not declaring tyres.
Pascal Wehrlein had a great start from the line with Oliver Rowland (Nissan E.Dams) failing to make the best of it and lost positions. Nick Cassidy could only make it through half a lap when he collided with the wall outside of turn 8. The Envision Virgin Racing car had to be carefully moved out the circuit under the safety car.
Wehrlein was the first amongst the grid to go for the Attack Mode. The Attack Mode gives the driver an extra 35kW of power for a few laps. Wehrlein immediately gained back the positions lost when taking the ‘Joker Lane’ to activate the Attack Mode.
Drama erupted on the track when Robin Frijns took out Nyck de Vries in a late lunge attempt into turn 11. Frijns ended up picking a 10 second penalty for causing the collision.
The exit of the Attack Mode zone was causing collisions between the ones exiting out of the zone with the ones racing on the track. Jean-Eric Vergne and Sam Bird fell victims to two separate collisions when they rejoined the track after activating the Attack Mode . They were pushed to the wall of turn 8 when the drivers racing could not see them rejoining the track. The collision between Sam Bird and Alex Lynn brought out the safety car as the collision destroyed Bird’s front felt suspension.
Pascal Wehrlein had a dominant finish to the race when the team radio of the FIA disqualified the Porsche driver for a technical infringement. Porsche did not declare the tires being used on Wehrlein’s car and it resulted in the disqualification. The victory was handed to Lucas di Grassi on the out lap after the end of the race. Audi finished with a one-two victory with Rast at P2 and Mortara at P3. Frijns still leads the driver’s championship by two points from Antonio Felix da Costa.
The Mahindra Racing Team had a satisfactory finish to the race with both drivers finishing inside the points table. Alexander Sims finished fourth while his teammate Alex Lynn finished a tenth. Both drivers were involved in identical racing incidents at Turn 8. But both of them managed to resume unscathed. Mahindra racing currently stands at the seventh position in the constructor’s championship with 60 points. They trail BMW I Andretti Motorsport by five points in the table.
There were a lot of overtakes and lunges in the race. Some were successful while others were nearly race ending. The Round 9 of Formula E will also be hosted at the same track and it may have a very different outcome to this. You can view the race on the Formula E YouTube page or Hotstar at 02:30 am IST.