Formula E Mexico City E-Prix

RasputinLives

No passing through my dirty air please
Contributor
Bit of a late thread going up but for those of you who are interested season 3 of Formula E has its next chapter this Saturday (01/04/17) in Mexico City. The Mexican round of Formula E is unique for the fact it is actually held on a man made circuit. the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, rather than a street circuit. Consequently the cars perform slightly differently and it usually shakes the order up slightly. If you saw the race last year you'll remember that the amazing podium celebrations last year and that the Mexican fans went pretty nutty for the race, This year, inspired by the sudden inclusion of Mexican driver Esteban Gutteriez, I expect them to be even more excited. You'll also remember that last years race was won in style by Audi Abt's Lucas Di Grassi, only for him to be disqualified (again) for an underweight car that promoted Dragon Racing's Jerome D'ambrosio to the win. D'ambrosio had spent the whole race fending of EDAMS' Sebastian Buemi who got very rattled and angry and kept cutting corners. For me it was one of the best races last year and I'm hoping this will be repeated,

Structurally and set up wise there is no doubt that Formula E is on the upturn. BMW have announced that they will officially join next season, Mercedes are set to join in season 5, Mclaren are considering running their own team and Ferrari are making public statements saying being involved in Formula E is a priority for them. On top of all of that the cars look and sound beautiful and the technology is getting better and quicker. The only thing that has not been on the up is the racing itself. Season 3 has been a bit of a damp squid compared to the previous 2 years. This is partly because of the bizarre calendar that has massive gaps in it and allows no momentum (seriously needs sorting) and partly due to the combination of EDAMS Renault and Sebastian Buemi being so dominant, Buemi has won all 3 races this season (although no poles) and its easy to say its because he has the best machinery but wouldn't be 100% true. Whilst it is true that the Renault powertrain is the superior equipment we should give Buemi the credit he deserves. Since leaving F1 he has clearly developed into a world class racing driver and shows that in both this series an WEC. His contribution to the current dominance should not be underestimated as his team mate is hardly pulling up trees. Unfortunately dominance hasn't led to the best racing and more worryingly his challenger at each race has been someone different with no contender emerging, The only silver lining is that coming to Mexico last year he was the odds on favorite and from that race onwards things all got a bit spicy.

WEC has actually thrown a bit of a curve ball into proceedings this weekend as Buemi, due to Toyota commitments, will not arrive in Mexico until Saturday morning and therefore will miss the Friday shake down session. Will this effect him? not really sure. Buemi never excels in quali anyway so him being off the pace there won't make too much difference. Last time out it looked like the Techeetah team, also using Renault powertrain, might have emerged as the main contender to EDAMS with Jean Eric Vergne taking the fight (slightly) to Buemi. Techeetah now have two racing drivers (sorry Ma but well....) after having signed Gutteriez. I don't expect him to be on a par with Vergne or Buemi but I imagine he'll be mixing it up with Prost, Interestingly Felipe Massa had signed a contract to race for Techeetah from this race onwards but broke that to go back to drive for Williams in F1, I think Massa would have been an interesting add. Other challengers? Well Felix Rosenqvist in the much improved Mahindra (by much improved I mean Bruno Senna is no longer driving it) has been pretty tasty so far this year and could mount a challenge, grumpy old Piquet Jr shouldn't be counted out now he has better equipment and the Andretti wild car pairing of Frinjs and Felix Da Costa could do anything from last to first depending on the way the wind blows. My money is on Di Grassi and the Audi Abt being the biggest challenge here. The team usually dial into race tracks pretty well (see Donnington and testing) and Di Grassi knows this place pretty well. Lets just hope they keep the car legal this time.

For those of you watching in the UK the race will be shown live on CH5 and starts at 10:30pm. You can also watch the qualifying live on a channel called Spike (never heard of it) from 6:30pm. Not sure about the rest of the world but Formula E usually streams everything live from its website.

Lets hope for a good one.
 
What an absolute corker of a race. Brilliant.

So tactical it was a bit like chess on wheels.

From a Jag point of view, brilliant 4th for Mitch Evans but I'm very disappointed he didn't put more pressure on his team mate in the first stint. It was obvious that Carroll was burning through his energy.

Overall though, smashing stuff.
 
Hope Evans gets to keep that 4th place as he was down to zero energy when he crossed the line.

I'm pretty sure Di Grassi can't believe his desperate gamble actually paid off with a win and I'm still unclear what the hell happened to Buemi.

Vergne managed to swear live on air in both French and English was a unique double. LOL
 
Really enjoyed that, incident packed race. I think the organisers really need to think about the track width compared to the width of the cars though.
 
Fantastic from what i saw. Miles better than last yrs awful race because nobody could get past & was far too tight. Great action great strategy. Almost perfect race for April fools day because Like rasputin says di grassi cant believe he won that when he was bashed on lap 1 & had to change his rear wing, just about staying on lead lap no-one would ever think that hour later he would be on the top step of the podium

But i cant comment on the major part of the race because of the time difference & watching it a bit on delay race for me was 11:20pm - 12:20am, i may have dropped off between lap 20 & not woke up til lap 30 when my Brain said are you watching or are you asleep. So when I was woke up i was confused at were lopez went & how Di grassi was leading from d'ambrosio. How mitch evans got in a position to finish 4th
 
It's even more astonishing that Evans got 4th given how much of a hit he took from Rosenqvist at the end there in the pile up that Prost started. Trying to find a video link but it wasn't a gentle tap!
 
Big day for Jaguar today. Congrats to them!

As I've said a million times in the F1 forum, the utopia of drivers being always able to push is not only a nonsense, it produces shite racing and is less challenging for drivers to boot. Energy management is creating close, tactical, interesting racing in Formula E, plus it is a million times more road relevant.

JFK avenue and the ultimate bottleneck next...
 
Also a further discussion on how the lack of Aero on Formula E cars makes for closer racing (something very much denied by a certain ex member of this forum) and how Formula One needs to pay attention.

Well for the most part in 2016. I thought that probably the problem because look at GP2 compared to F1 on the same circuits . espically Baku in GP2 possibly the best single seater race i saw in 2016. Then F1 massively underdelieved
 
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