Mexico City E-Prix: Wehrlein beats Lotterer in Porsche 1-2

Wehrlein had a difficult road to convert his pole position into victory, as Porsche elected to start saving energy early on in the race, losing the lead to championship leader Edoardo Mortara as the Venturi driver grabbed an excellent drive out of the Peraltada to clear the German at Turn 1.

The Porsches then continued to drop back, as Lotterer was mobbed by the DS Techeetah pair prior to Jean-Eric Vergne clearing Wehrlein.

Lotterer re-passed Antonio Felix da Costa after a slight skirmish in the Foro Sol stadium as the multiple Le Mans winner took attack mode.

Wehrlein was then given the hurry-up by his engineer to clear Vergne, as it became apparent that the Porsches had more useable energy than the front-running duo of Mortara and Vergne - a request that Wehrlein complied with a lap later.

That set Wehrlein up with a run on Mortara, who was about two percent down on useable energy, and his play for the lead at the start of lap 28 proved successful - Lotterer following through at Turn 3.

The Porsches then were able to scamper off into the distance, helped by a brilliant battle for third between Vergne, Mortara and Robin Frijns - who made some swashbuckling overtakes to stand in podium contention.

Although Lotterer was bearing down on Wehrlein, the leader was told not to "worry about the car behind" - Lotterer admitting after the race that Porsche had elected to "work as a team" to secure the victory.

Wehrlein crossed the line with one second left on the clock to add an extra lap to the ticker, causing more than a few energy consumption worries for multiple cars behind, but it proved no problem for the Porsches - who enjoyed an excellent crescendo to the race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Vergne won the battle for third, passing Mortara for fourth on lap 36 after the Swiss driver endured a big lock-up and allowed the Techeetah duo to trickle past.

The Frenchman then cleared Frijns, who was at an energy disadvantage and dropped back towards the end - losing places to da Costa and Mortara.

Mercedes' Nyck de Vries endured a difficult race, but was able to take advantage of the energy worries of the cars around him to leap up to sixth at the death, also clearing countryman Frijns.

Sebastien Buemi and Maximilian Gunther also benefitted from their competitors' energy woes, which stopped a late-race resurgence from Oliver Rowland and also shuffled Mitch Evans and Sam Bird out of the points.

Jake Dennis had also struggled throughout the weekend, and was sitting in the lower midfield but was able to jump up the order - taking 10th after Lucas di Grassi was handed a five-second time penalty for contact with Vandoorne early on in the race that dropped him to 12th.

Stoffel Vandoorne was another loser in the energy stakes, dropping out of the points - as did Nick Cassidy, who finished 13th despite a second-half streak through the points scorers after taking his attack modes later on compared to his rivals.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Pascal Wehrlein	Porsche Team	40	47'20.404
2	Andre Lotterer	Porsche Team	40	47'20.706	0.302	0.302
3	Jean-Eric Vergne	Techeetah	40	47'29.455	9.051	8.749
4	Antonio Felix da Costa	Techeetah	40	47'30.379	9.975	0.924
5	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi	40	47'38.760	18.356	8.381
6	Nyck de Vries	Mercedes	40	47'39.424	19.020	0.664
7	Robin Frijns	Virgin Racing	40	47'40.636	20.232	1.212
8	Lucas di Grassi	Venturi	40	47'42.929	22.525	2.293
9	Sébastien Buemi	Nissan e.dams	40	47'43.798	23.394	0.869
10	Maximilian Gunther	Nissan e.dams	40	47'46.901	26.497	3.103
11	Jake Dennis	Andretti Autosport	40	47'47.233	26.829	0.332
12	Stoffel Vandoorne	Mercedes	40	47'47.490	27.086	0.257
13	Nick Cassidy	Virgin Racing	40	47'49.198	28.794	1.708
14	Oliver Turvey	NIO Formula E Team	40	47'53.382	32.978	4.184
15	Sam Bird	Jaguar Racing	40	47'56.081	35.677	2.699
16	Oliver Rowland	Mahindra Racing	40	47'56.451	36.047	0.370
17	Oliver Askew	Andretti Autosport	40	47'56.799	36.395	0.348
18	Dan Ticktum	NIO Formula E Team	40	48'05.011	44.607	8.212
19	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	40	48'22.862	1'02.458	17.851
20	Sergio Sette Camara	Dragon Racing	40	48'41.810	1'21.406	18.948
21	Antonio Giovinazzi	Dragon Racing	21	26'38.045	19 Laps	19 Laps
22	Alexander Sims	Mahindra Racing	1	1'22.334	39 Laps	20 Laps
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