Mortara vaults into Formula E points lead with Puebla win

Edoardo Mortara jumped from eighth to first in the Formula E World Championship standings by taking his and Venturi’s second victory at Puebla.

Mortara and Venturi’s only previous FE win had come in Hong Kong in March 2019, making the Mexico triumph the team’s first as Mercedes’ Formula E customer team.

Having qualified third, Mortara passed front row starter Pascal Wehrlein off the line and then settled in behind polesitter Oliver Rowland’s Nissan.

Rowland followed an assertive strategy of taking both his attack mode deployments in the first seven laps, but waiting a little longer paid off for Mortara and he was ahead of the Nissan as he rejoined from the attack mode loop for the second time on lap 12.

Wehrlein later got past Rowland when the Nissan lost momentum having clipped the wall. The Porsche – which was disqualified from victory yesterday due to an administrative error over declaring its tyre sets – rapidly hunted Mortara down only to use its tyres too heavily doing so.

That allowed Mortara to break away again and he ultimately won by 2.3s over Wehrlein, amazingly giving him an instant 10-point championship lead.

Porsche now faces another painful wait for news from the officials as it was announced just after the finish that Wehrlein is under investigation for maximum power over-use.

Rowland ultimately dropped back to fourth as Envision Virgin’s rookie Nick Cassidy took his first Formula E podium, gaining ground by leaving his attack mode visits late and then overcoming Rowland on track in the closing stages.

Jake Dennis and Alex Lynn completed the top five after Jean-Eric Vergne spun from fifth to seventh then was overtaken by Dennis’s BMW team-mate Maximilian Guenther.

The pre-race championship leading group had a bruising time in the midfield. Mitch Evans fared best to make it to ninth for Jaguar, as Audi’s Rene Rast came from last on the grid following his qualifying mistake to 10th, passing erstwhile points leader Robin Frijns on the final lap.

Saturday winner Lucas di Grassi was a penalised 18th following collisions with both Sam Bird (who finished 12th ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne) and Nyck de Vries (who had to retire as a consequence).

Reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa was still outside the points when he crashed by himself at the tricky Turn 7 right-hander seven laps from the end.

Race Results