Jacen's Rants
Formula E Race Review - 2025 Mexico
January 11, 2025
The first race I've been able to catch in 2025, and the second race of the Formula E seasons, since Brazil took place back in December. Unfortunately, it's once again taking place at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, historically one of the most boring tracks on the Formula E schedule. The only hope is that either the new GEN3 Evo spec improves the racing or that the weather cooperates to give us rain during the race.
Qualifying was mixed up, as usual. Pascal Wehrlein proved once again that Mexico is his house, leading a Porsche front-row lockout. It's his fourth pole position at the track, and his second in a row. On the flip side, several drivers had penalties for technical and driving infractions. Taylor Barnard, fresh off a podium in Brazil, had a particularly bad qualifying, putting him near the back as well.
There was rain overnight, leading to a wet Practice 2, but the weather held off for the rest of the day, leading to a dry race.
Passing was clearly very difficult for the first third of the race, and I was concerned that this would be another Mexico snoozefest. Fortunately, Attack Mode surprisingly came through.
Whatever Formula E did with Attack Mode this year, I still feel like it's a bit over-tuned, but it's so close to being perfect that I'd rather they not touch it. The strategy of when to take attack mode and how long to use it made a huge difference in the race. The extra power also enabled passing when it otherwise would have been completely impossible.
To make things even better, we also got the one thing that guarantees a dramatic ending to any motorsport event: a late-race safety car.
I knew that the cleanup for the Beckmann crash would probably be pretty quick, and it was possible that Rowland would have enough Attack Mode time left to take advantage of the restart. As it turned out, he had exactly enough time left to make the passes he needed to make, and not one second more.
Overall, this was a way better race than I was expecting from this track. We're only two races in, so there's plenty of time for things to turn south, but the GEN3 Evo definitely seems to be a big improvement overall. It was nice to see something other than the peloton-style races that Formula E seems to like creating so much, and it was fun to see an all-out sprint to the finish. Hopefully season 11 continues the way the first two races have because if it does, it's a good sign of things to come for the sport.
