I am beyond excited to be going back to Mexico City. I will admit that a large part of that excitement revolves around tacos and margaritas, but until fiaformulae.com ask me to put together a food and beverage piece for each event, I will try and pay particular attention to my excitement and anticipation as to what we're about to see on-track this weekend!
The Circuit Hermanos Rodriguez has been on the calendar since the second season of Formula E. We had to pop to Puebla last year due to the pandemic, but Mexico is very much a mainstay of the series.
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ROKiT Venturi Racing arrives at the world’s highest race track leading both championships, and rather remarkably five of the seven races in Mexico have been won by drivers now with Venturi. Edoardo Mortara took victory last season in Puebla for the Monegasque team, while his teammate Lucas di Grassi has won three times in Mexico, once in Puebla last season and twice in Mexico City.
Di Grassi took the chequered flag in Season 2 as well, but he was later disqualified, handing the win to a certain Jerome d’Ambrosio, who is now the Venturi team principal!
READ MORE: Mexico City's best moments
Overall, Diriyah was incredibly successful for the Mercedes-EQ powertrain. Between the factory team and Venturi, they collected more points than every other team combined, a remarkable effort at the opening event of the season. But there were signs of weakness, especially in race two with Stoffel Vandoorne’s qualifying struggles and reigning champion Nyck de Vries’ fall through the order. There were also other drivers able to take the fight to them, with Jake Dennis (Avalanche Andretti) finishing third in race one, and Robin Frijns (Envision Racing) second in race two. In fact, only Dennis and di Grassi finished in the top five in both races.
Two major players had a strange weekend, in Porsche and Jaguar TCS Racing. A rejuvenated Andre Lotterer was very impressive, particularly in qualifying where only de Vries had a higher average grid position over the two races. In race one, the team miscalculated their energy targets, so he dropped back, but in race two he was able to consolidate fourth position. That pace will be encouraging for the Stuttgart team, although Pascal Wehrlein qualifying 11th on both days will no doubt be a concern considering the fact that he out qualified Lotterer 10-4 last season.
READ MORE: What we learned in Diriyah
When Sam Bird qualified fifth and finished fourth for Jaguar in race one, the British manufacturer looked in good shape, despite Mitch Evans’ qualifying struggles. But for the second race, both drivers hit the wall in qualifying, a remarkable occurrence for one of the best driver pairings on the grid. It is a long season, of course, but being 45 points off the Teams' Championship lead after the opening weekend of competition will be cause for concern.
What Porsche and Jaguar’s weekend showed us though, is that bad weekends are going to be more heavily punished this season. The points spread at the top of the standings is actually tighter than it was after Diriyah last year. In Season 7, De Vries was at the top with 32 points, and ten points covered the top three in the championship. This season, Mortara is on top with 33 points, but just eight points cover the top five.
Everyone enters Mexico City equal though, with no group qualifying to penalise the championships top drivers. For me, that really makes each race feel much more important and intense, which combined with this being only the second ‘single header’ event for Formula E since the start of the pandemic, means that actually I am more excited for the racing this weekend than the food.