Wikipedia

2020 Mexico City ePrix

The 2020 Mexico City ePrix (formally the 2020 CBMM Niobium Mexico City E-Prix) was a Formula E electric car race held at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in the center of Mexico City on 15 February 2020. It served as the fourth round of the 2019–20 Formula E season and was the fifth edition of the event as part of the championship. [2] The race was won by Mitch Evans, who had started from second on the grid, with António Félix da Costa coming in second behind him, while Sébastien Buemi came in third.

2020 Mexico City ePrix
Race 4 of 11 of the 2019–20 Formula E season
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Race details
Date 15 February 2020 (2020-02-15)
Official name 2020 CBMM Niobium Mexico City E-Prix
Location Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City
Course Permanent racing facility
Course length 2.606 km (1.619 mi)
Distance 36 laps, 93.816 km (58.295 mi)
Weather Dry
Attendance 41,000 (Foro Sol)[1]
Pole position
Driver
Porsche
Time 1:07.922
Fastest lap
Driver United Kingdom Alexander Sims Andretti-BMW
Time 1:10.520 on lap 31
Podium
First
Jaguar
Second
Techeetah-DS
Third
e.dams-Nissan
Lap leaders
Mitch Evans (center) scored his second Formula E victory, António Félix da Costa (left) finished second and Sébastien Buemi (right) scored his first podium finish of the season.

Following his race win, Mitch Evans took the lead of the driver's championship, with 47 points, to edge out Alexander Sims by 1 point in the standings, while da Costa's second consecutive podium brought him up to third in the standings, with 39 points. Owing to him crashing out of the race, then-championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne fell to fourth in the standings, with 38 points. Lucas di Grassi's 6th place finish was sufficient to keep him in the top 5, with 32 points.

Report

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Background

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On 15 June 2019, Formula E announced the provisional calendar for the 2019–20 Formula E season, which would be the sixth season of the championship, with 14 races to be held across 12 cities globally. On this provisional calendar, the Mexico City ePrix was planned as the 5th round of the championship.[3]

On 5 October 2019, Formula E announced the finalised calendar for the season, which would see 14 races to be held across 12 cities globally.[4] This finalised calendar would see the race bumped up to the 4th round of the championship, with the TBA round in December being cancelled.[5]

Ahead of the start of the race weekend, it was revealed that Mahindra Racing's drivers, Pascal Wehrlein and Jérôme d'Ambrosio had both been given 40 place grid-penalties, after the team opted to introduce new gearboxes for both cars, breaching Articles 28.4 and 28.5 of the 2019/2020 FIA Formula E Championship Sporting Regulations, relegating both drivers to the back of the grid. Owing to the size of this penalty, an additional punishment during the race will be enforced, although the severity of the added penalty will be dependent on the amount of grid positions conceded. Should both drivers qualify inside the top four, they would only receive a drive-through penalty, while anything lower would result in a 10-second stop-go penalty.[6]

Track changes

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On 18 January 2020, Autosport published an article that revealed changes to the Mexico City track for the 2020 Mexico City ePrix, the change having previously been hinted at, due to the event being marked as "subject to circuit homologation" from the FIA when Formula E's 2019–20 calendar was first announced in June 2019. This was understood to be due to the length of the circuit needing to be increased as grid increased to 24 cars from the start of this season, following Porsche's entry into the electric championship.[7] On January 28 2020, this change was confirmed, with it being announced that the race was to take place on a lengthened, 2.592km layout without chicanes.[8]

A new section, consisting of five new corners, would be added after Turn 2, including a sweeping right-hander, before the cars would enter the back straight, with the chicane eliminated, giving drivers a clear run into Foro Sol stadium section, which had been left unaltered, following which, the cars would enter the final corner of the track, the Peraltada, now a sweeping 180 degree turn, with the chicane being removed.[9][10]

Qualifying

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André Lotterer scored his second and Porsche's first pole position.

Sam Bird dominated Group 1 with the time of 1:08.346, which allowed him to qualify for Superpole from sixth place.[11] Group 2 saw Mitch Evans post a time of 1:08.174, which was the fastest time of group stage, earning Evans one championship point. Nyck de Vries, Pascal Wehrlein and André Lotterer have also qualified for Superpole, making it four drivers out of six from Group 2 to have made it to Superpole.[11] Group 3 only featured five drivers as Daniel Abt did not take part in it due to a crash in Free Practice 1.[12] Robin Frijns was the fastest driver in the group, but did not make it into Superpole, his time was only seventh best.[11] Sébastien Buemi from Group 4 was the final Superpole qualifier, posting a time of 1:08.363 which was enough for a fifth place in group stage.[11] Oliver Turvey had a technical issue, which prevented him from posting a representative lap time.[12]

Bird was the first to go on track in Superpole as he qualified from sixth place. Bird posted a slower time compared to the one he posted in group stage, his time of 1:08.444 was also the slowest in Superpole, making him start from third row on the grid. Buemi went on next, posting a nearly identical time compared to his group stage outing, which was once again enough for fifth place. Wehrlein then posted a lap time of 1:08.200, taking the provisional lead. Lotterer then followed with a lap of 1:07.922, beating Wehrlein's time. This time would later prove to be the best one as de Vries and Evans both failed to improve on it.[12][13]

The final starting grid would see some changes. De Vries would move to second row after Wehrlein was moved the back of the grid (along with the other Mahindra driver Jérôme d'Ambrosio), making almost the entire grid move up a position.[12] Abt and Turvey also had to start from the back of the grid, though ahead of Mahindra drivers.[14]

Race

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The opening lap saw Evans getting into the lead and creating a gap that would last for the entire race.

Lotterer started the race from pole alongside Evans, who locked up into the first corner. This pushed Lotterer wide as Evans was on the inside.[15] Lotterer fell back into fourth place, but would quickly grab a place to move up to third. On lap 3, Nico Müller brought out the safety car after he hit the outside wall surrounding the first corner.[15] This allowed both Mahindra drivers to get back in contention after they were given additional penalties (stop-and-go for D'Ambrosio and a drive-through for Wehrlein). The safety car phase ended at the end of lap 5. Evans, Buemi, Lotterer, Bird and Frijns made up the top 5 at the restart, though Lotterer would soon lose three places to Bird, Frijns and de Vries.[16]

On lap 7, Felipe Massa hit the same wall as Müller, but was able to park the car in a safe spot and his retirement did not affect the race.[17] Few laps later, Lotterer clipped a wall on the exit of turn 3, which stuck an advertising banner into the bodywork of his car, which created a cloud of smoke behind him. The bodywork eventually fell off, but the car was already damaged, which forced Lotterer to pit and subsequently retire from the race.[16][18] Another incident happened on lap 19 and it involved Nyck de Vries, who tried to defend from António Félix da Costa. De Vries used FanBoost on the main straight and could not brake into the first corner, hitting Frijns in the process. Frijns was able to continue, de Vries was not.[17]

Ma Qinghua would be the next one to retire, crashing at turn 3. Meanwhile in the front, Jean-Éric Vergne would battle his teammate da Costa, in an attempt to overtake Buemi, which was the goal Techeetah were trying to accomplish. Da Costa would eventually stay ahead of Vergne and would soon overtake Buemi himself, moving up to third place.[16] Daniel Abt would retire in pits after he spun at turn 1 on lap 29.[17] Da Costa would then go on to chase Bird, who would later crash while in attack mode phase at turn 3 during lap 32. Bird got back going, but crashed again in Foro Sol, where he stayed parked for the rest of the race.[15] Stoffel Vandoorne would also hit the barriers on the penultimate lap, eventually finishing the race a lap down with a severely damaged car.[16] Vandoorne was not classified in the results, despite crossing the finish line while pitting.[19]

Evans won the 36-lap race, followed by da Costa and Buemi. Vergne, Alexander Sims (who also had the fastest lap of the race), Lucas di Grassi, Oliver Rowland, Edoardo Mortara, Werhlein and d'Ambrosio completed the list of points finishers. James Calado originally finished ninth, but was later disqualified, so was Frijns, who finished twelfth.[19]

Classification

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Qualifying

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Group draw[20]
Group 1   VAN (1)   SIM (2)   BIR (3)   GUE (4)   DIG (5)   ROW (6)
Group 2   DAC (7)   EVA (8)   LOT (9)   MOR (10)   DEV (11)   WEH (12)
Group 3   FRI (13)   CAL (14)   ABT (15)   JEV (16)   MAS (17)   DAM (18)
Group 4   HAR (19)   TUR (20)   BUE (21)   MUL (22)   JAN (23)   QMA (24)
Pos. No. Driver Team GS SP Grid
1 36   André Lotterer Porsche 1:08.346 1:07.922 1
2 20   Mitch Evans Jaguar 1:08.174 1:07.985 2
3 94   Pascal Wehrlein Mahindra 1:08.362 1:08.200 241
4 17   Nyck de Vries Mercedes 1:08.294 1:08.214 3
5 23   Sébastien Buemi e.dams-Nissan 1:08.363 1:08.364 4
6 2   Sam Bird Virgin-Audi 1:08.394 1:08.444 5
7 4   Robin Frijns Virgin-Audi 1:08.435 — 6
8 7   Nico Müller Dragon-Penske 1:08.479 — 7
9 25   Jean-Éric Vergne Techeetah-DS 1:08.496 — 8
10 13   António Félix da Costa Techeetah-DS 1:08.540 — 9
11 5   Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes 1:08.636 — 10
12 48   Edoardo Mortara Venturi-Mercedes 1:08.661 — 11
13 22   Oliver Rowland e.dams-Nissan 1:08.726 — 12
14 64   Jérôme d'Ambrosio Mahindra 1:08.788 — 231
15 6   Brendon Hartley Dragon-Penske 1:08.878 — 13
16 18   Neel Jani Porsche 1:08.880 — 14
17 11   Lucas di Grassi Audi 1:08.998 — 15
18 28   Maximilian Günther Andretti-BMW 1:09.098 — 16
19 51   James Calado Jaguar 1:09.331 — 17
20 27   Alexander Sims Andretti-BMW 1:09.376 — 18
21 19   Felipe Massa Venturi-Mercedes 1:09.450 — 19
22 33   Ma Qinghua NIO 1:10.176 — 20
NC 3   Oliver Turvey NIO 2:10.061 — 212
NC 66   Daniel Abt Audi no time — 223
Source:[21][22]

Notes:

  • ^1  – Both Mahindra drivers received 40-place grid penalties for changing gearboxes twice.[23][24] As the drivers could not fulfill the full drop of 40 positions, Jérôme d'Ambrosio was handed an additional ten-second stop-and-go penalty at the start of the race,[25] while Pascal Wehrlein only received a drive-through penalty, as he could be dropped by at least the minimum of 20 positions, which he accomplished by qualifying third.[26]
  • ^2  – Oliver Turvey's car suffered a technical failure during the qualifying session. The Stewards gave him the permission to start the race from the back of the grid.[27]
  • ^3  – Daniel Abt did not take part in the session due to ongoing repairs to his car following a crash in Free Practice 1. The Stewards gave him the permission to start the race from the back of the grid.[28]

Race

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Drivers who scored points are denoted in bold.

Pos. No. Driver Team Laps Time/Retired Grid Points
1 20   Mitch Evans Jaguar 36 46:42.093 2 25 12
2 13   António Félix da Costa Techeetah-DS 36 4.271 9 18
3 23   Sébastien Buemi e.dams-Nissan 36 6.181 4 15
4 25   Jean-Éric Vergne Techeetah-DS 36 14.331 8 12
5 27   Alexander Sims Andretti-BMW 36 19.244 18 10 13
6 11   Lucas di Grassi Audi 36 28.346 15 8
7 22   Oliver Rowland e.dams-Nissan 36 29.750 12 6
8 48   Edoardo Mortara Venturi-Mercedes 36 30.204 11 4
9 94   Pascal Wehrlein Mahindra 36 31.132 24 2
10 64   Jérôme d'Ambrosio Mahindra 36 32.818 23 1
11 28   Maximilian Günther Andretti-BMW 36 35.512 16
12 6   Brendon Hartley Dragon-Penske 36 36.399 13
13 3   Oliver Turvey NIO 36 50.888 21
14 18   Neel Jani Porsche 36 1:04.891 14
NC 5   Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes 35 1 lap 10
Ret 2   Sam Bird Virgin-Audi 31 Accident 5
Ret 66   Daniel Abt Audi 30 Retired in pits 22
Ret 33   Ma Qinghua NIO 25 Accident 20
Ret 17   Nyck de Vries Mercedes 18 Brakes 3
Ret 36   André Lotterer Porsche 11 Collision damage 1 34
Ret 19   Felipe Massa Venturi-Mercedes 6 Accident 19
Ret 7   Nico Müller Dragon-Penske 2 Accident 7
DSQ1 51   James Calado Jaguar 36 Energy usage 17
DSQ1 4   Robin Frijns Virgin-Audi 36 Energy usage 6
Source:[29]

Notes:

  • ^1  – James Calado (who originally finished ninth) and Robin Frijns (who finished twelfth) were both disqualified from the race due to their energy used being over regulatory limit.[30][31]
  • ^2  – Fastest in group stage.
  • ^3  – Fastest lap.
  • ^4  – Pole position.

Standings after the race

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  • Notes: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References

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  1. ^ "WATCH: Full analysis - what made the Mexico race so good?". FIA Formula E. 19 February 2020. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  2. ^ "2020 CBMM Niobium Mexico City E-Prix". FIA Formula E. Archived from the original on 28 February 2020. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  3. ^ "Formula E unveils 2019/20 calendar with earlier start date". www.motorsport.com. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  4. ^ "Final calendar revealed for season six of ABB FIA Formula E Championship". FIA Formula E. 5 October 2019. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  5. ^ "Formula E 2019-2020 revised calendar revealed". Crash. 4 October 2019. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  6. ^ "Mahindra face 40-place grid penalties for d'Ambrosio and Wehrlein in Mexico". Motorsport Week. 14 February 2020. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  7. ^ Kalinauckas, Alex. "Mexico City Formula E track will use more of F1 layout from 2020". Autosport.com. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  8. ^ "Mexico City". RacingCircuits.info. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  9. ^ Kilshaw, Jake. "Mexico City Track Extended; Chicanes Removed – e-racing365". e-racing365.com. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  10. ^ "Formula E - Mexico City ePrix circuit makes changes for this season". FormulaSpy. 28 January 2020. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  11. ^ a b c d "Classification Qualifying" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  12. ^ a b c d Kew, Matt (15 February 2020). "Mexico City E-Prix: Lotterer scores Porsche's first pole". Motorsport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  13. ^ "Classification Super Pole" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  14. ^ "Grid Race" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  15. ^ a b c Kilshaw, Jake (15 February 2020). "Evans Dominates Mexico City E-Prix as Chaos Unfolds Behind". e-racing365. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  16. ^ a b c d Kew, Matt (15 February 2020). "Mexico City E-Prix: Evans wins wild race for Jaguar". Motorsport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  17. ^ a b c Smith, Sam (15 February 2020). "Evans gives Jaguar dominant second Formula E win". The Race. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  18. ^ Kew, Matt (16 February 2020). "Lotterer reflects on disastrous race for Porsche". Motorsport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  19. ^ a b "Classification Race" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  20. ^ "Doc 18 - Qualifying Groups" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  21. ^ "Doc 54 - Final Classification Qualifying - Superpole" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  22. ^ "Doc 56 - Final Starting Grid RACE" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  23. ^ "Doc 12 - Decision 2" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  24. ^ "Doc 13 - Decision 3" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  25. ^ "Doc 45 - Decision 12 AMENDED" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  26. ^ "Doc 44 - Decision 13" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  27. ^ "Doc 46 - Decision 16" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  28. ^ "Doc 47 - Decision 17" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  29. ^ "Doc 73 - Final Classification Race" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  30. ^ "Doc 63 - Decision 21" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  31. ^ "Doc 64 - Decision 22" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  32. ^ "Doc 64 - Drivers Championship POINTS" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  33. ^ "Doc 65 - Teams Championship TEAMS" (PDF). FIA Formula E. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
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2022 Mexico City ePrix
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