Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein drives to victory in the Formula E 2024 season opener in Mexico City, which he then has to worry about for hours
Pascal Wehrlein is the first winner of the 2024 Formula E season. The Porsche works driver drove from pole position to victory in the Mexico City E-Prix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Saturday. However, it took almost four hours after crossing the finish line before the German’s triumph was officially confirmed
During the race, it became known that an investigation had been launched against Wehrlein and defending champion Jake Dennis from Porsche customer team Andretti for a breach of the technical regulations.
Specifically, the accusation was “non-compliance with the homologated primary pedal grid”. After the race, the telemetry data from Wehrlein’s car was analyzed. After hours of deliberation, the stewards came to the conclusion that there had been no infringement of the rules and confirmed Wehrlein’s victory and Dennis’ ninth place.
Wehrlein had taken the lead from pole position after the start and only had to relinquish it briefly to Envision driver Sébastien Buemi after the two Attack Mode activations. However, Wehrlein regained the lead and ultimately won comfortably ahead of Buemi. Nick Cassidy (Jaguar) finished third.
“The race wasn’t easy, it probably looked easier than it was because I was in the lead for most of the race,” said Wehrlein. “I couldn’t save much energy, just a little bit at a time to reach my goal.”
Maximilian Günther (Maserati-MSG) finished a good fourth in the season opener, with Mitch Evans (Jaguar) in fifth. Jean-Eric Vergne (DS-Penske), Jake Hughes (McLaren), Stoffel Vandoorne (DS-Penske) and Dennis and Norman Nato (Andretti) rounded off the top 10.
Anniversary race to forget for Abt
The German Abt team experienced a race to forget at its 100th start in Formula E. Lucas di Grassi had to park his car on the second lap with a brake failure. Team-mate Nico Müller collided with Antonio Felix da Costa (Porsche) on the third lap.
While Felix da Costa subsequently had to park his car with a broken front suspension, Müller was able to continue despite hitting the barriers, but was unable to finish higher than 17th.
The 2024 Formula E season continues in two weeks’ time (January 26/27) with two races on the Diriyah circuit in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh
