Lucas Di Grassi put all his ABB FIA Formula E World Championship experience to use at the 2022/23 season-opening Mexico City E-Prix, as the Brazilian dealt with immense pressure to claim a third-place finish at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
As the sun rose on race day, nobody could’ve predicted that Di Grassi would end the day towards the sharp-end, with Mahindra Racing having looked less than convincing across pre-season testing and during Free Practice One. Free Practice Two was slightly better for Di Grassi, who was the only driver capable of extracting any performance from Mahindra’s M9Electro powertrain. Heading into the first qualifying session of the season, no one had any hope for Mahindra or their customer side the ABT CUPRA Formula E Team, who’d languished at the back during Free Practice.
Unbelievably, whilst the other three Mahindra-powered cars struggled, Di Grassi made it all the way to the Final of the duels, where he remarkably claimed the first pole position of the Gen3 era. When it came to the race, the former Formula E Champion started the race excellently after a solid launch. Di Grassi led the opening stages of the race and dealt with two early Safety Cars well; however, it was a mistake from him at Turn Two after the second Safety Car restart which allowed Jake Dennis to lunge up the inside at Turn Three.
Dennis went on to clear into the distance, with Di Grassi having not had the pace to escape to victory. He ended up defending for the bulk of the race, with the likes of Jake Hughes and Pascal Wehrlein having appeared considerably faster. The Brazilian used all his years of experience in the all-electric series, though, to maintain second place, until Wehrlein eventually found a way past. Whilst he had no answer for the German, he did manage to keep Hughes behind to claim a famous rostrum on his Mahindra debut, securing him fifteen points.
He actually walked away from Mexico City with eighteen points, having claimed an additional three for achieving pole position. Di Grassi hailed his fortieth Formula E podium as a “Mexican miracle”, with the Brazilian driver having been hoping to “make the team proud” ahead of the race.
“What happened today was like a Mexican miracle. To be on pole and to be on the podium and going home with 18 points after a tough beginning to the season is a testimony to the hard work the team are putting in to make the car the best we can. I gave it my all today to try and make the team proud. I’m very happy to leave here with this result, it feels like a victory to us. But this is just the beginning. We need more consistent results and we have got to work hard for this.”
“It’s disappointing to not score any points” – Oliver Rowland
On the other side of the Mahindra garage, it was a much tougher season opener for Oliver Rowland, who crossed the finish line in thirteenth place. The British driver faced difficulties across the vast majority of the weekend in Mexico City and actually qualified in last place, as a result of having struggled with rear tyre degradation.
The race didn’t go much better for Rowland, who struggled to make any significant progress during the race. His race was summed up by a late collision with René Rast, which actually resulted in the NEOM McLaren Formula E Team driver retiring from the race, whilst his team-mate Hughes battled Rowland’s team-mate for the podium.
In the end, it was simply a “pretty tough weekend” for the British Mahindra driver, who was disappointed to finish outside the points, given his team-mates success.
“It’s been a pretty tough weekend here in Mexico. I struggled quite a lot in practice and qualifying. We changed a lot for the race, which was a little bit better, but still not perfect. It’s disappointing to not score any points here, but hopefully we can learn from what happened this weekend. Obviously Lucas did a great job and got some good solid points for the team and hopefully we can move forward in Saudi.”
Credit: Simon Galloway courtesy of FIA Formula E