JAKE DENNIS WINS THE MEXICO CITY E-PRIX FOR AVALANCE ANDRETTI!
An incredible race to kick off Gen3, full of excitement and nerves right to the finish. It would be Lucas di Grassi in the Mahindra on pole position (with his teammate 22nd and last!), with Dennis on the front how beside him. Jake Hughes would start 3rd on his debut, 4th would be the other Andretti of Andre Lotterer, with Dan Ticktum rounding out the top 5. The race would start and di Grassi would get away well, checking out from Dennis and Hughes, who had tried a move around the outside unsuccessfully. Sacha Fenestraz would move up to P7 with an incredible move on Buemi.
Further down the back, the Abt of Robin Frijns ground to a halt at the T9 chicane, hitting Norman Nato in the rear and causing both cars to retire. This meant a safety car deployment On lap 2. As the safety car wound in on lap 6, the top 4 would keep their positions, but Pascal Wehrlein managed to pass Dan Ticktum for P5. It wouldn’t be long before another safety car was deployed. In fact, it was on the same lap! Sam Bird had stopped his Jaguar car after T1 with a reported driveshaft failure, causing the Porsche safety car to reappear.
There was little action again until lap 12, when Dennis managed to sneak past di Grassi for the lead at T3. This battle opened the door for Hughes in the McLaren to attempt a move on the Brasilian, but to no avail.
Maserati had showed little promise based on their pre season running, and that trend continued when Edo Mortara spun and clouted the T1 barrier meaning another safety car deployment. Dan Ticktum would have to serve a drive through penalty as well for overpower, ending his race. On lap 26, di Grassi and Hughes both took attack mode, but that gave Wehrlein the chance to slip past Hughes, as he was in attack mode from the lap before, meaning the Porsche driver was up to P3, still quite a way behind Dennis, who had checked out.
Lap 29 saw di Grassi 2% down on both Wehrlein and Hughes, in terms of energy. This lead to extreme battery saving by the Mahindra, and Wehrlein eventually passed him for P2 into T9
A gripiing battle ensued for P3, with di Grassi, Hughes, and Lotterer all fighting for the last spot on the podium. Wehrlein had used extra energy to his advantage, and pulled a gap to the fighting group
Incidents for Sergio Sette Camara and Rene Rast ended their races in the 5 ’added laps’ (a new feature adding on time from safety car procedures). These were not televised live, so I cant tell what happened, but they both retired
Buemi and Antonio Felix da Costa joined the fight for P3 with a lap to go, but it would be to no avail as they stayed in their positions. Lotterer would get past Hughes down the inside into T9, but it would be the other Andretti of Jake Dennis who had dominated the first race of Gen3 and took the chequered to win in Mexico City!
The screens and all that was very cool. Albert Park has the real estate to go that elaborate.