The first race of the year Formula E World Cup, ninth season of the electric championship and first with the Gen3 on the track, it was almost a walk for Jake Dennis, with the Andretti powered by Porsche. The Briton moved into the lead midway through the race and from there walked smoothly to victory, managing energy and attack mode activations without pressure. Second on the podium Mexico it was Wehrlein, with Porsche, and third Say Grassi, with certain consumption problems in the Mahindra.
With all the novelties introduced for this season, regeneration, new batteries, new brakes… Di Grassi defended the first pole. It turned out to be a prudent start in which nobody looked for the starting limits. Neither Dennis with the Andretti, nor Hughes with the McLaren they squeezed the leading Mahindra. Only the abandonment of Cupra of Frijnswith problems in braking against the nissan of Born, altered the normality of the beginning, bad for the premiere of one of the cars of the Spanish brand. At the start, with the group stretched out in a row one by one, Di Grassi commanded again until bird had to park his Jaguar with mechanical problems. In just a few laps, two of the teams’ greatest fears surfaced: the sensitivity of the new braking system and the reliability of a Gen3 that has not yet been squeezed.
The second exit after Security maintained the tradition of the previous ones, although the pilots were already beginning to shape up for the attack mode, installed in the sun forum. They asked Dennis from the radio to attack Di Grassi, although he didn’t need it to overtake the Brazilian, who lost time and space due to problems with ‘consumption‘, against the Andretti and saw very close to Hughes and the other Andretti, the one from lottery.
Midway through the race, the Porsche of wehrlein He reached fourth place and the difference between the top-5 and the rest made us think that victory was up to them, with better rhythms for Dennis, lap by lap adding tenths to his lead. A difference that knocked down the Maserati of mortar after going long in the braking of 1 and causing the third yellow of the race.
On the way back Dennis went back to the ‘Hammertime’. Andretti’s tactic was clear: open a gap to activate attack mode without losing position, while the pursuers had to put their position at stake to gain performance. And so the British came to victory and Hughes gave up the podium against the Porsche of Wehrelin who soon after gave an account of the Andretti’s Di Grassithird.
The laps under yellow flag were recovered with five extra laps, another of the novelties of the year, races by laps, not by time. In that final stretch, with still little data on battery life, it was time to manage the energy, although Hughes Y lottery they staged one last dance close together, from which the latter emerged victorious, to place three Porsche-powered cars in the top four.
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