Formula E’s 2026 Mexico City thriller was full of through-the-field charges, meaning even some of those who didn’t win had plenty to be pleased about.

But others will be really, really kicking themselves in the wake of this one.

Additional reporting by Andy Stobart

Winner - Nick Cassidy + Citroen (1st)

This was why Stellantis broke the bank for Nick Cassidy last spring!

Cassidy’s opening gambit for Citroen Racing was a typically decisive and smooth third place in Sao Paulo but the team hadn’t seen anything yet.

The Mexico City E-Prix had never been particularly kind to Cassidy in his Envision and Jaguar days but he made up for it with a devastatingly clinical race from 13th on the grid to victory.

It had all the classic Cassidy hallmarks. Gnarly elements of practice and qualifying when he made a few mistakes, particularly on his first qualifying lap when he struggled with tyre temperature feel. He apologised, swallowed it and then planned for the race.

Time was when 13th on the grid would have meant no chance of even a podium here. But in Gen3 Evo with the four-wheel-drive and now no Turn 8 chicane, overtaking is as much of a cinch as it’s ever been in Mexico.

That’s not to say that Cassidy breezed to the win. Rather that his strategy was nailed to the floor, as was surviving a very lairy moment when a bottleneck at Turn 5 turned into a four-car melee, through which he came reasonably undaunted and unscathed.

His moves on his way to the front after taking a six and a two minute attack mode strategy were authoritative and his defence against Edoardo Mortara was both deft and defiant. While those around him squabbled between them, Cassidy was laughing into the distance.

Only Oliver Rowland can make opponents submit like Cassidy, sometimes just on the right side of the demarcation of what is legal and clean. But he and his team just make it happen.

“Honestly, I didn't think into the last lap that we were OK. I was happy with the P4 today, starting P13,” Cassidy said after fending off a train of pursuers to the flag, most of whom had attack mode for longer than him in the closing laps. 

“My radio was very much like ‘let's secure a good result’. But my engineer, Pepe [Frey], he's just stuck by me. I get pretty up and down in some sessions, but he's always there. We've only had two weekends so far, but he's always been making the right calls. 

“This one is very much for him as it is for me and our whole team because it's the team, the car, the package and the strategy that enabled us to do that race. You can't win this race with a bad car.”

Citroen’s buoyancy was added to with Jean-Eric Vergne coming through from 18th to eighth in a patient drive to recover from a poor qualifying, in which, like Cassidy, he just didn’t get the best of the tyre temperature window. 

For Citroen Racing it was a sensational result. Renault - a winner on its official Formula E debut in 2015 - is the only manufacturer that’s won quicker in series history, with of course the caveat that Citroen’s debut is effectively some internal Stellantis rebranding of what was Maserati.

Loser - Porsche (6th + 9th)

(Images above courtesy of Andreas Beil)

Porsche got two cars in points scoring positions for the second race in succession to make it the only team to get a ‘full house’ so far in terms of points scores.

That fact in itself could, in normal circumstances, be seen as a ‘win’. But not in the context of Porsche’s supreme record at Mexico City. High standards simply weren’t met with a sixth and ninth place finish there this year. Ten months without a win too will start to pinch a bit.

At Mexico City, Pascal Wehrlein appeared on the backfoot more than ever before at this altitude, never really got into the groove in qualifying, and was disappointed to start 11th.

Porsche’s director of factory motorsport for Formula E, Florian Modlinger, said the team knew it had to “take some risks to bring him forward to use our natural pace, which worked out quite well” in the form of the very early attack mode that briefly got Wehrlein into the lead. But it didn’t pan as Porsche hoped. 

“Clearly, the starting position was compromising,” said Modlinger. “The end result, the pace was good, but could have been a bit better. He caught the frontrunners, but he could not fight with them for a better position.”

Wehrlein got his claws out and drove a strong race but never really felt like he had the pace to trouble a podium.

Mueller had a stronger weekend overall but fell away badly in the final stages of the race having looked set to join in the thrilling four-way scrap for the win.

Strangely, post-safety-car he had “a sudden loss of grip, which we need to understand”, according to Modlinger.

Winner - Oliver Rowland (3rd)

Another champion’s drive from Rowland and an early season point haul very much in keeping with his back-to-back titles dream.

It could have been better still without a grassy excursion midway through the race in a hairpin traffic jam that was a precursor to the later tenpin-bowling shunt that accounted for Antonio Felix da Costa and Dan Ticktum.

Regrouping, Rowland planned for his final 350kW attack mode hit on the fringes of the top 10 and came through expertly. Some of the moves weren’t pretty but they beat - physically and mentally - several drivers into submission, most ruthlessly Nico Mueller. 

Rowland even put behind him what appeared to be race breaking misfortune when the full course yellow and then the safety car sucked most of his first Attack Mode out of the window.

“I was one of the first to take the attack mode, so when the full course yellow came out, I had lost five places,” he said.

“I thought my race was done, but we were really efficient and we could keep the energy. I could just be quick at the end and the pace was the key thing.”

Loser - Jaguar (11th + DNF)

What is it with the starts of recent seasons for Jaguar? Two races in and no points. While last season started badly, it at least had Mitch Evans’ Sao Paulo win to savour. This term it’s even worse, or is it?

While Jaguar lost out again points wise, its pace was at least strong. But at the same time reliability concerns compromised it too. Da Costa was getting quicker and quicker despite losing an entire practice session to a DC/DC fault, something which was thought to be generally out of Jaguar’s collective hands.

Had it not been for that loss of track time, then both da Costa and the team felt he could have been on Jaguar customer team Envision’s polesitter Sebastien Buemi’s pace and to an extent his team-mate Evans’s too.

Da Costa told The Race that he was still “very happy with what we did in qualifying”, where he still secured 10th. In the context of that loss of practice time, he really impressed - as he had in Sao Paulo.

His race though was not without challenges and all not of his making. Again, like Sao Paulo he lost out to genuine misfortune even before the multi-car tangle that ended his day.

Unlucky for Da Costa 🫣

A big moment leads to an early race-end for the Jaguar driver in Mexico City@Hankook_Sport #MexicoCityEPrix pic.twitter.com/edoxObRs7t

“For some reason, my front left tyre started delaminating, something I haven't seen before,” he said.

“My levels of understeer were extreme, and that meant that I could not be good on energy, could not be good on racing and fighting. I got a little bit exposed to be defensive, and got involved in a crash there, where I got hit by Nick [Cassidy] and then could not avoid hitting Max [Guenther].

“Just wrong time, wrong place. Seems like we can't shake this off, but I've been here before, so head down. The car is quick; the team is great. So, it's coming.”

Evans was strong in qualifying and just lost out to Buemi’s similar Jaguar in the semi-final, lining up fourth.

His race featured a late-ish first attack mode deployment but then disaster struck on his second attempt as his extra 50kW did not activate. Holding off for another go, Evans got mired in the midfield and then got a slow puncture which compromised his pace and left him a frustrated 11th at the chequered flag.

Winner - Edoardo Mortara (2nd)

Mortara’s old traits of sometimes being a bit up and down in his racing could have been excused coming to Mexico City.

HIs Mahindra team found a crack in his monocoque on the eve of the race weekend - a legacy of being dumped into the barriers by Lucas di Grassi in Sao Paulo last month - and had to do a complete car rebuild in the Mexican paddock on Wednesday and Thursday.

But it didn’t impinge on Mortara’s pace at all and he looked just as potent as he had in Brazil, firmly putting team-mate Nyck de Vries in the shade again.

A patient and controlled race wasn’t without issues as something technical (The Race believes it to be a power cut) flustered him mid-race and also scared his pursuers. Had it not been for that then Mortara, like Rowland, could have been on the top step, meaning Mortara would have won the 50th, the 100th and the 150th Formula E races. But it wasn’t to be.

Settling for a runner-up place was a tough swallow, especially as on the penultimate lap it looked as if he was a shoo-in for the victory. But with the race going flat-out even the 350kW power mode wasn’t enough to overturn a determined Cassidy, whose steely gaze Mortara could see in the Citroen’s defensive minded mirrors.

Mortara and Mahindra know they have a real chance of winning races this season and challenging for the title. Sao Paulo was a complete debacle, Mexico City was, at least on one half of the garage, a complete dazzler, especially in light of the Mahindra’s major shift to rebuild his car.

Loser - Envision (14th + 17th)

Envision’s strong weekend went unrewarded in messy circumstances as polesitter Buemi, phenomenally quick all weekend, blotted his experienced copybook with a very public mistake at the first corner.

A dramatic start in Mexico City 😬

Buemi goes deep and loses his lead into Turn 1@Hankook_Sport #MexicoCityEPrix pic.twitter.com/wYNVsC0fvZ

“I just had a slow start, and I just didn't want to give up the position,” said Buemi of his trip down the escape road while trying to fend off Taylor Barnard.

“I just braked too late, in the dust and it was a silly mistake.” 

Buemi showed real grit in compartmentalising the error, telling The Race that he’s “learned over the years that at some point there is nothing else you can do. The mistake is done. You need to move on”. 

He then got back up the field expertly, was decent on energy and then looked to have a chance of fighting for a podium - such was his pace. A puncture under the safety car ended it all and he came in a dejected 17th. 

Team-mate Joel Eriksson was a bit anonymous in Mexico, qualifying 15th and finishing 14th after he went off at Tun 14 and was deemed to have gained an advantage that, according to the stewards, he did not give back. He’d been 10th on the road before the five-second penalty for that offence.

Winner - Pepe Marti (7th)

Pre-race this had the feeling of a test to Pepe Marti, who not only started at the back but also with a 10-second stop and go penalty for a complete powertrain change after an issue in the second free practice session left him stranded in the garage.

Taking his penalty on the first lap, Marti rejoined almost a lap down and essentially racing in a different postcode to the rest of the field. With no option but to cruise and save energy, Marti’s prayers were answered when de Vries caused the safety car.

He then went on the offensive and drove an intelligent race that had his Cupra Kiro team principal Russell O’Hagan purring.

“As we know, there's genuinely a relatively high chance of a safety car within a Formula E race,” O’Hagan told The Race. 

“It came at a good time and then Pepe delivered very calmly and very well on maximising that. He did a great job to get where he did and score some good points. I think that's a big landmark moment for him.”

For a driver who had such a brutal lesson to learn in Sao Paulo, one that cost him big points and his team big money, Marti’s adaptation to Formula E in the wake of that tumult has been highly impressive.

Loser - Nyck de Vries (DNF)

Many tipped De Vries for a title assault pre-season. Yet after two races he has just two points.

Mexico City was a total weekend to forget for the 2021 champion. In a lame qualifying session he was just not confident enough with the grip levels of his Mahindra.

In the race he was only 18th when he suffered an electrical problem that caused his car to go into a red state and trigger the full course yellow and then safety car.

De Vries will be keen to completely reset in Miami later this month after a nightmare start to a campaign that promised so much but has so far delivered very little.