until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Mitch Evans scored a commanding second Formula E win for himself and Jaguar in the Mexico City E-Prix.
Evans grabbed the lead into the first corner in a tough battle with polesitter Andre Lotterer’s Porsche, with contact between them sending Lotterer bouncing over the grass and down to fourth.
After the high of Porsche’s first Formula E pole, Lotterer’s race went rapidly downhill as a string of subsequent incidents led to him retiring a battered car in the pits.
Evans quickly established a lead even before an early full-course yellow caused by Nico Muller ploughing his Dragon Penske into the Turn 1 wall while trying to go around the outside of Nyck de Vries’ Mercedes for fifth.
Nissan e.dams driver Sebastien Buemi ran second at first and doggedly held back a group of cars that might have had the pace to try to chase Evans.
Sam Bird was first to make it past Buemi but had no answer to Evans by that time.
DS Techeetah pair Jean-Eric Vergne and Antonio Felix da Costa were also among Buemi’s attackers, though they lost time battling each other and debating team orders over the radio.
Da Costa eventually made it past Buemi around the outside approaching the stadium in the closing minutes and then demolished the three-second gap to Bird.
Bird initially held da Costa off only to slide into the wall. But even once up to second, da Costa could do nothing about Evans – who won by 4.2 seconds and now leads the championship.
Buemi held on to third ahead of Vergne, as Bird had a second crash and ended the race on the sidelines.
Alexander Sims battled through from 18th on the grid to fifth for BMW, spending much of the latter part of the event in a fierce dice with Stoffel Vandoorne. That ended when Mercedes driver Vandoorne clouted the wall.
Lucas di Grassi made good progress to sixth having started 15th, resisting Oliver Rowland, Edoardo Mortara, James Calado and the Mahindras of Pascal Wehrlein and Jerome d’Ambrosio at the end – Wehrlein and d’Ambrosio having recovered well from their substantial penalties.
They then gained two more places when Calado was disqualified from ninth for a technical infringement, putting Wehrlein and d’Ambrosio ninth and 10th.
Robin Frijns was another of Buemi’s early pursuers before a strange incident in which de Vries locked up spectacularly while battling da Costa and speared into Frijns just ahead. The Virgin rejoined to finish 11th once Calado was excluded.
Santiago race winner Maximilian Gunther couldn’t emulate BMW team-mate Sims’s progress and finished only 13th on the road.
After his practice crash and hospital visit, Daniel Abt was running 17th until retiring following an odd spin out of the first corner.
Felipe Massa was another who didn’t reach the finish, damaging his Venturi Mercedes when he smacked the Turn 1 barrier.
