Pascal Wehrlein claims victory in Formula E season-opener in Mexico City for Porsche, Sebastian Buemi takes second

TAG Heuer Posche's Pascal Wehrlein became the first winner of the 2024 Formula E season with an immaculate race in Mexico City.

The Porsche driver started from pole position and after an early duel with Envision's Sebastien Buemi, Wehrlein broke away from the field in the second half and controlled things from there.

"It was a tough race because we were leading most of the race and, actually, that's not so efficient on energy," Wehrlein said. "But for me, when I took over the lead, every lap was more or less like a qualifying lap, really trying to maximise all my minimum speeds.

"I saw that Seb [Buemi] made a small mistake once behind me which opened a small gap for me and from then on I think it was pretty controlled.

"It's definitely great to start the season like this because last season, especially the second half of the season, was a bit frustrating. We stuck together, we tried to improve all of our weaknesses and I think, again, to kick off the season like this is great.

"But now we need to continue and we need to keep pushing so we don't suffer the same issues as last season."

Starting from pole, Wehrlein held on to the lead at lights out with Buemi his first chaser. The duo swiftly gained an advantage over the field.

Wehrlein was first to deploy attack mode and remained in P1 for the first couple of laps. Buemi briefly took over on Lap 7 when he himself was in attack mode already and Wehrlein went wide to re-enter it.

The safety car came out on Lap 10 following an incident involving Robin Frijns who lost the rear of his Envision machine on stadium exit and hit the wall.

While Buemi initially remained in the lead, he opted to go wide for another attack mode, seeing he had enough of an advantage to stay ahead of Maximilian Gunther (Maserati MSG Racing) in third, and lost the position to Wehrlein.

From there onwards, Wehrlein controlled proceedings and never looked under threat again, even more so when a mistake from Buemi opened the gap up to more than two seconds.

Meanwhile, Nick Cassidy (Jaguar TCS Racing) capitalised when Gunther went wide to opt in to attack mode, taking third and clinging on to it.

At one point Cassidy even looked in contention to challenge Buemi for second, but the experienced Swiss driver managed his position well and brought runner-up over the line.

"It was a smooth race and the qualifying was obviously the key point - it's quite difficult to pass here," Buemi admitted. "But I think we've had a clean race; I've had a bit of a moment into Turn 1 and nearly lost a position to Nick [Cassidy], but then I was just able to recover.

"Pascal [Wehrlein] was fast; I knew that he was under investigation, so I didn't want to try too much. I'm happy with that P2 and if it becomes something better, I'll be happy as well," he said referring to an infringement claim against Wehrlein that is still being investigated.

"The last five laps I kept under-consuming; I guess I could have got close to him, but, at that point, to pass him would have been really risky, so I thought, you know what, I'm going to finish P2 and see what happens."

Once past Gunther, Cassidy never looked under threat of surrendering P3 again and the Kiwi secured a podium on his Jaguar debut.

"It's really nice [to start with a podium]," he said. "It's not been an easy weekend, but the team have been really awesome.

"Hopefully, this is the start of something quite cool and hopefully we can keep improving. But great race, I think we got fastest lap too, so that's a nice little cherry on top.

"Coming into the weekend I was quite confident, but I must say that with FP1 and 2 I thought I was in for a difficult weekend, so the recovery was really nice."

Behind, Mitch Evans (Jaguar TCS Racing) exhibited a masterclass in defensive driving to hold off DS Penske's Jean-Eric Vergne, who had incredible pace in the second half of the race.

Jake Hughes (Neom McLaren Formula E Team) was the top Brit in seventh ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne (DS Penske) while defending champion Jake Dennis (Andretti Formula E) had to settle for ninth at the season opener. Norman Nato (Andretti Formula E) rounded out the top 10.

First race with a new team and Cassidy surely did a lot to prove right Jaguar's decision to pick him up.

The Kiwi was first to admit that not everything went to plan early on in the weekend, but, crucially, he turned things around when it mattered most.

1/35: WEHRLEIN HOLDS LEAD, EXCELLENT START FROM GUNTHER - Lights out and away we go as Wehrlein holds the lead from pole. Buemi remains in second, but it's Gunther who had the best getaway up in third, two places up from where he started.

7/35: BUEMI TAKES LEAD - And there's the overtake as Buemi moves past Wehrlein and into the lead as the Porsche driver opts for an attack mode.

9/35: FRIJNS IN THE WALL, FULL COURSE YELLOW - Frijns loses the rear and hits the wall near the grand stand at stadium exit and that's his race over. With the car stationary, full course yellow is called.

12/35: BUEMI OPTS FOR ATTACK, LOSES POSITION - Buemi takes the long corner to opt back into attack mode. He loses the lead to Wehrlein but manages to stay ahead of Gunther.

14/35: ATTACK OVER FOR BUEMI, STAYS BEHIND WEHRLEIN - Buemi's attack mode expires, but so far he hasn't managed to get back past Wehrlein. In fact, the Porsche driver has created almost a second of a gap at the front.

23/35: WEHRLEIN IN CONTROL - Wehrlein has a very nice gap of more than two seconds in front and a decent pace, putting him in a perfect position to control things. The same can't be said for Buemi who is getting company in the form of Cassidy and Gunther.

32/35: TWO ADDED LAPS CONFIRMED - It's two laps to be added on to race distance due to the safety car earlier on.

33/37: WEHRLEIN COMFORTABLE, BUEMI PERSISTS - No problem still for Wehrlein with his race engineer telling him that "everything is under control". Meanwhile, Buemi is doing a great job to hold on to second ahead of Cassidy and Gunther.

37/37: WEHRLEIN WINS MEXICO E-PRIX - Wehrlein takes the chequered flag and becomes the first winner of the 2024 season. Buemi does indeed hold on for second while Cassidy completes the podium in third.

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