Lucas di Grassi used fan power to take an emotional win in front of a large and passionate crowd that was treated to a fabulous inaugural Mexico City ePrix.
The unique layout of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez – part traditional race track, part street circuit – made overtaking tricky, but not impossible. But with an additional 100kJ of energy that di Grassi received through FanBoost, he was able to slipstream Jerome D’Ambrosio and take the lead into the tight first corner.
For three laps di Grassi threw energy consumption to the wind and concentrated on building up a lead instead, which he did to perfection at almost a second per lap. With D’Ambrosio having his mirrors full of Renault e.dams’ Sebastien Buemi, di Grassi was able to establish a comfortable advantage that he converted to not only his second win of the season, but the lead in the drivers’ championship.
The battle for second was fierce. Erstwhile points leader Buemi was recovering from a mistake in qualifying, which left him fifth on the grid rather than the pole position his pace in practice had suggested. He passed di Grassi’s Abt Schaeffler team-mate Daniel Abt early on, and made up a further place in the pit stops when he leap-frogged his Renault e.dams team-mate Nico Prost.
As Buemi backed off to allow D’Ambrosio to re-pass, it allowed Prost, Abt and the second Dragon of Loic Duval to get into the fight. Eventually, the previous order was restored, but by now di Grassi was almost 10 seconds up the road. The fight for second went all the way to the flag and a photo-finish, with D’Ambrosio crossing the line just ahead!
What the weekend also demonstrated is that Formula E can produce unpredictable, exciting action that gets the crowd on its feet.
2016 Mexico City ePrix (Rd 5) – Race results
- Lucas di Grassi, Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport, (25)
- Jerome D’Ambrosio, Dragon Racing, +5.416s (23)
- Sebastien Buemi, Renault e.dams, +5.522s (15)
- Loic Duval, Dragon Racing, +16.774s (12)
- Nico Prost, Renault e.dams, +30.953s (10)
- Robin Frijns, Andretti Formula E, +33.893s (8)
- Sam Bird, DS Virgin Racing, +34.344s (6)
- Daniel Abt, Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport, +35.467s (4)
- Nick Heidfeld, Mahindra Racing, +41.789s (2)
- Stephane Sarrazin, Venturi, +42.707s (1)
- Bruno Senna, Mahindra Racing, +43.019s
- Oliver Turvey, NEXTEV TCR, +44.014s
- Mike Conway, Venturi, +44.206s
- Nelson Piquet Jr, NEXTEV TCR, +47.767s
- Simona de Silvestro, Andretti Formula E, +49.387s
- Salvador Duran, Team Aguri, +1:08.498s
- Jean-Eric Vergne, DS Virgin Racing, +1 lap
- Antonio Felix da Costa, Team Aguri, DNF
