Formula E Race Review - 2026 Mexico City E-Prix

Season 12 technically started in 2025, but Mexico City still brings us the first race of 2026. It's also the 150th race that Formula E has run. Mexico City is generally a very lackluster track to me, but with how good last year's finish was combined with a minor change to the track layout, it remains to be seen exactly what kind of race this season will give us.

There was some buzz online when Formula E posted the track layout for the Mexico City round. In 2023, the track layout was changed to add a chicane in the middle of the back straightaway. This has been removed this year, effectively returning the track back to its 2020 configuration. Throughout practice, the result was a drop in lap times by around six seconds.

Additionally, turn 1 was tightened, removing some of the grass run-off that drivers previously took advantage of, particularly on lap 1.

Qualifying

Qualifying in Formula E is performed in two rounds. First, the field is split into two groups for a ten-minute group qualifying round. The top four in each group are then pitted against each other for the one-on-one duel stages to determine the top eight positions on the grid.

In group A, it was noted that the drivers were all very bunched together, none of them backing off to give themselves space. Obviously, being close to another car is bad for your push lap, since the dirty air from the car in front is going to reduce your downforce in the corners, meaning less grip and less speed. However, it's also bad for the prep laps, giving you less space to get up to speed and making it more difficult to get the tires into the temperature window.

Once it came time to push, everyone did eventually work out the spacing. Jake Dennis was the fastest of the group, with Nico Mueller, Taylor Barnard, and Edoardo Mortara all advancing into the duel stage behind him. Penske made an interesting call on Barnard's car to swap the left-side and right-side tires to help with the temperature management. Nick Cassidy notably had a fast lap deleted for exceeding track limits, leaving him as one of the six on the outside looking in.

In group B, Sebastien Buemi, Dan Ticktum, Mitch Evans, and Oliver Rowland were the ones to advance. Ticktum's team made the call to sit on pit road as the exit opened rather than immediately jumping onto the track to hopefully find some extra space. He nearly threw it away twice in turn 1, but managed to hang on to the second spot. Penske once again made the tire call on Max Guenther's car, although this time the strategy didn't work out. Notably, four-time Mexico City polesitter Pascal Wehrlein missed out on the duels entirely.

Moving onto the duels, starting with the quarterfinals, Mueller seemed to have an advantage over Barnard in the first sector despite the car looking very out of shape; Barnard, however, was able to pull through for the rest of the lap and best him to move onto the next round. Dennis, surprisingly, lost out to Mortara early, not quite showing the pace it seemed like he had. Ticktum was more conservative into turn 1 than he had been previously, and while he nearly clawed back the lost time from the conservative start, he wasn't quite able to catch Evans. Buemi was very far behind Rowland through sector 1, but he had a far better rest of the lap, easily outrunning Rowland to advance.

In the semifinals, Mortara and Barnard were very evenly matched; Mortara made a small mistake with a snap of oversteer in the final corner, and Barnard was able to outrun him despite a close call with track limits. Buemi was once again slower than Evens through the first sector, but he had an overall more consistent lap, moving onto the finals.

Barnard had an incredible lap for the finals, easily able to outrun Buemi by a large margin. However, he ran too long through the final corner, sending him wide, and this time getting his lap deleted for exceeding track limits, gifting Buemi his first pole position in almost three years.

There were still a few pre-race grid penalties to serve, mostly holdovers from the season opener in São Paulo that weren't able to be served even after being converted to post-race time penalties. Pepe Martí had the harshest penalty for his FCY crash, with an automatic drop to the back of the grid. Additionally, he was given an additional 60-place penalty for changing an inverter, MGU, and gearbox, which was converted to a 10-second stop-and-go. Lucas di Grassi was handed a five-place penalty for causing a collision. Felipe Drugovich and Jean-Eric Vergne each received three-place penalties for speeding under FCY. No additional on-track penalties were applied for infractions during practice or qualifying.

Qualifying Results

	Inside	Outside
Row 1	Sebastien Buemi	Taylor Barnard
Row 2	Edoardo Mortara	Mitch Evans
Row 3	Nico Mueller	Dan Ticktum
Row 4	Jake Dennis	Oliver Rowland
Row 5	Max Guenther	Antonio Felix da Costa
Row 6	Pascal Wehrlein	Norman Nato
Row 7	Nick Cassidy	Zane Maloney
Row 8	Joel Eriksson	Lucas di Grassi
Row 9	Felipe Drugovich	Jean-Eric Vergne
Row 10	Nyck de Vries	Pepe Martí

The Race

Barnard got a good jump on the start, but Buemi managed to hold the position approaching the first corner. Unfortunately, he locked up and completely missed T1, immediately shuffling him to the back and gifting the top spot to Barnard. From there, things more or less stabilized at the front, with Barnard defending from Mortara for the lead.

One big element of Formula E strategy is the Attack Mode. This puts the car into a higher power mode and enables four-wheel drive at the cost of running through a specified activation zone, usually placed off-line in a corner. Attack Mode is activated in two-, four-, or six-minute bursts. All drivers must take Attack Mode exactly twice, and they must use eight minutes of Attack Mode time total.

Wehrlein went for an interesting strategy with an early Attack Mode on lap 4. This was a double gamble, both due to using one of his two attack modes and the extra energy used by running in a higher-power mode. As Wehrlein made his way to the front, Mortara was able to get by Barnard for the lead. The factory Porsche teammates Mueller and Wehrlein both made it past as well, and the Porsche-powered Andretti car of Dennis also made it up to fourth. Wehrlein, with his extra power, was able to pass Mortara for the lead before the Attack Mode ran out. Eventually, to help save some of that energy back, the Porsches swapped positions, and Mortara's Mahindra car was able to get past both to retake the lead.

Nothing much happened at the front beyond Mueller and Mortara swapping the lead, but de Vries had some drama around lap 17, with his car coming to a stop in the T1 run-off. Rowland's team made the odd call to trigger a two-minute attack mode while the yellow flag was out. He managed to use around half of it before the full-course yellow was called, although he had a small dust-up with da Costa as they slowed, losing a couple of spots in the process. The FCY was eventually converted to a full Safety Car period. This was good news for the dozens of Martí fans, as he got an opportunity to rejoin the back of the pack. Buemi, who had clawed his way back to 6th, was forced to pit under the safety car with a puncture, relegating him to the back of the field for the second time, this time with less energy and one less Attack Mode in the bank to fight with.

The race restarted on lap 22, resuming the duel between Mueller and Mortana. Movement was still minimal among the front-runners, and they all held onto both of their Attack Mode activations.

There was, however, some drama in the mid-pack. Cassidy tried to make a move on da Costa, who clattered into Guenther, who collected Ticktum. All cars were able to drive away from the incident, although Ticktum and da Costa both had to retire their cars.

Evans was one of the few front-runners to finally take an Attack Mode. He made his way to the front, taking advantage of a mistake from Mueller to take over the lead. Once the pass was made, the floodgates opened, with Mortara, Cassidy, Mueller, and Barnard all taking an Attack Mode immediately after, with Dennis choosing to take his a lap later.

In traditional motorsports with tire changes, there's the concept of the undercut and the overcut. The undercut is pitting early, giving you an advantage of extra speed on fresh tires while your rivals are still running slowly on older tires, while the overcut gives you an advantage toward the end of the tire life for an extra handful of laps. Attack Mode has a very similar impact on the racing, with the overcut being powerful for running down your opponents once their attack mode runs out. This makes delaying Attack Mode for an extra lap or two a very good strategy.

When Evans' Attack Mode ran out, Mueller, Mortara, and Cassidy were all able to get past, with Cassidy ultimately ending up with the lead. Dennis's overcut got him past Mueller for third, but he crucially wasn't able to get up to Mortara for P2 to fight for the lead.

Every three minutes of safety car time in Formula E adds one extra lap to the race, and in this race there were two added laps. At the front, Cassidy took his final Attack Mode, a two-minute stint compared to the four minutes that Dennis and Mortara had available. The two of them chose to trigger their second Attack Mode around a lap after Cassidy.

Dennis's attack was thwarted by Rowland, who continued to hassle him despite the Attack Mode advantage and was eventually able to pass him for third, and Barnard got by for fourth through the final corner. As for Cassidy, he put on a spectacular defense, parking the car exactly where he needed to mid-corner to slow down Mortara and give himself the best possible launch off the corner. It was enough for him to take the win and give Citroën Racing its first win after just two races.

To be thorough, the incident between Cassidy, da Costa, Guenther, and Ticktum was investigated by the stewards post-race, who determined it to be a racing incident.

Final Race Results

Pos	Driver	Gap
1	Nick Cassidy	-
2	Edoardo Mortara	+0.651
3	Oliver Rowland	+0.945
4	Taylor Barnard	+1.436
5	Jake Dennis	+1.647
6	Pascal Wehrlein	+1.936
7	Pepe Martí	+3.894
8	Jean-Eric Vergne	+4.943
9	Nico Mueller	+5.143
10	Norman Nato	+5.843
11	Mitch Evans	+6.168
12	Max Guenther	+9.113
13	Lucas di Grassi	+10.370
14	Joel Eriksson	+10.614
15	Felipe Drugovich	+13.200
16	Zane Maloney	+27.458
17	Sebastien Buemi	+60.202
NC	Dan Ticktum	Out
NC	Antonio Felix da Costa	Out
NC	Nyck de Vries	Out

Conclusion

Overall, this was about as good of a Mexico City race as I could have hoped for. Most of it wasn't particularly interesting from either a strategy or racing point of view, but once the Attack Mode strategy finally kicked off for the front-runners, it was much more enjoyable to watch.

Cassidy definitely had an impressive run, and three of the Porsche-powered cars had a strong comeback after a bit of a lackluster qualifying. Barnard also had a strong run after a bit of a quiet weekend at São Paulo. It was also a surprising comeback from Martí, with him overcoming the litany of penalties.

Conversely, I was a bit disappointed in the lack of speed from Drugovich after his remarkable start to the season (albeit a start undone by penalties). It was also a very forgettable day for Buemi, partly due to driver error and partly due to circumstance.

There are still 15 races left in the season, so it's a bit premature to start looking at the championship picture, but Cassidy and Dennis have both had strong starts across the first two races, and Rowland has done a good job fighting back from mid-pack qualifying to begin his title defense. It remains to be seen how the championship evolves as the season goes on.