Mortara Wins In Puebla To Take Championship Lead

Calum Gill 23:17 20/06/2021

Edoardo Mortara has won the second race at the Puebla E-Prix, and in doing so, taking the outright lead in the world championship.

This is Mortara and Monegasque manufacturer Venturi's second win, their first coming back at the 2019 Hong Kong E-Prix. As a result, this is their first win as a Mercedes customer team.

From third on the grid, Mortara made a good start, and passed Pascal Wehrlein at turn 1, before some interesting attack mode strategies came to light. Oliver Rowland, polesitter and leader at the time, was given a very aggressive strategy by Nissan, taking his two attack modes within the first seven laps. But Mortara waited a little longer before activating his first attack mode, and this call paid off when the Swiss racer rejoined the track ahead of Briton Rowland.

A mistake from Rowland - where he clipped the inside wall at turn 9 - allowed Wehrlein to get past at turn 11. Wehrlein tried to chase down Mortara up front, but he used his tyre too heavily in doing so, allowing Mortara to break away from the German. Mortara subsequently took the chequered flag on lap 32, 2.3 seconds ahead of Wehrlein, and in doing so taking the lead in the standings by 10 points over Robin Frijns.

Wehrlein - who lost his win yesterday through an administrative error by his team - was hit with another cruel blow, as he was demoted off the podium for improper fanboost use. A 5-second time penalty saw Virgin rookie Nick Cassidy's first podium get better, rising from an initial third to second, while Rowland took the final podium spot.

Jake Dennis and Alex Lynn completed the top five after Jean-Eric Vergne spun from fifth to seventh then was overtaken by Dennis’s BMW team-mate Maximilian Guenther. The pre-race championship leading group had a bruising time in the midfield. Mitch Evans fared best to make it to ninth for Jaguar, as Audi’s René Rast came from last on the grid following his qualifying mistake to 10th, passing pre-race points leader Frijns on the final lap.

Saturday winner Lucas di Grassi was a penalised 18th following collisions with both Sam Bird (who finished 12th ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne) and Nyck de Vries (who had to retire as a consequence). Reigning champion António Félix da Costa was still outside the points when he crashed by himself at the tricky Turn 7 right-hander seven laps from the end.

The next race is in New York on the 10-11th July.

2021 Puebla E-Prix 2 Classification (32 Laps)