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Edoardo Mortara
Practice 3 // P6
Qualifying // P3
Race // P1
Championship // P1 [72 points]
Norman Nato
Practice 3 // P7
Qualifying // P12
Race // DNF
Championship // P23 [11 points]
ROKiT Venturi Racing
Championship // P6 [83 points]
ROKiT Venturi Racing and Edoardo Mortara returned to winning ways at the Autodromo Miguel E. Abed, storming to a dominant victory at the Puebla E-Prix.
After finishing on the podium one day earlier, the Monegasque marque carried its form forward into the second leg of the double-header event in Mexico.
In qualifying, Edoardo Mortara secured a season-best starting position of P3 while team-mate Norman Nato took P12, sitting in a prime position to challenge for points.
When the race got underway, Edo secured a strong getaway and advanced to P2 by immediately overtaking Pascal Wehrlein while Norman lost ground after avoiding an accident in Turn 4, dropping to P16.
Keeping a close measure on leader Oliver Rowland, Edo maintained P2 over the opening stages and took the lead when the Nissan e.dams driver activated Attack Mode with 38-minutes + 1 lap of racing remaining.
Only minutes later, Edo too deployed his first use of the power boost device and re-joined the race in P3, only to regain the lead when Rowland and Wehrlein again armed Attack Mode.
Facing a clear track ahead, Edo established a gap over the rest of the field – despite facing a power disadvantage – to perform a successful overcut strategy, activating Attack Mode without sacrificing track position.
Carefully managing his energy usage, Edo remained in complete control out in front and fended off a late challenge for the lead from Porsche’s Wehrlein.
Taking the chequered flag, Edo crossed the finishing line in P1, leading 27 of the race’s 32 laps en route to ROKiT Venturi Racing’s second victory in the FIA Formula E World Championship and third podium of Season 7.
After dropping down to P16 on lap 1, Norman fought through the field to threaten for points in his recovery drive, however, an accident on lap 12 forced the Frenchman to retire.
Notching 25 points and 40 points in two races, Edo now leads the Drivers’ Championship with a 10-point advantage while ROKiT Venturi Racing sits in P6 in the Teams’ Standings, holding 83 points.
“I’m incredibly proud of the team and Edo for delivering our second victory in Formula E but also for doing it in such a dominant fashion. Throughout the season, we’ve shown that we have the pace and potential to be at the front of the field – it was just about putting everything together and that’s what happened in Puebla. Two races, two podiums. 40 points on the board. We really couldn’t ask for any more from this weekend.”
“What a weekend. Yesterday, we finished third on the podium and today, we went two steps further to take the win. Scoring 40 points on one race weekend alone is incredible and after winning today, I’m honestly speechless. This has been the best race weekend of my entire career. The team delivered an excellent strategy today but that didn’t make it a straightforward drive. In the final 10 laps, Pascal [Wehrlein] kept me under immense pressure, especially because he had more usable energy. This meant that we had to find a way to save more energy without sacrificing speed. It was difficult to resist him but we didn’t make any mistakes and we were able to maximise our potential to come out on top. This is an incredibly proud moment for both myself and the team and standing on the top step. I can’t quite believe it.”
“Firstly, I want to say a massive congratulations to Edo and the team for delivering an amazing win today! He drove an incredible race and has been flawless all weekend. Results like this make everything worth fighting for, and it’s an incredible reward for all of the hard work that we have put in this season! From my side, today was pretty frustrating overall. I was able to improve on my qualifying performance from Race 1 but by taking evasive action to avoid a crash on lap 1, I lost a lot of positions. From there, we faced a big challenge but we had good pace and we were able to fight through the field very quickly to challenge for points. When I was fighting for the top 10, I went to overtake [Sebastien] Buemi into Turn 11 but on the exit he closed the door and we made contact which broke something on the car. It’s a shame because we had the pace to be up there but we’ll go again next time in New York where the goal remains the same.”
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