Does the number 72 feel significant for Edoardo Mortara?

It’s the Mahindra driver’s current points tally from a very strong start to the current Formula E season and it places him in a very healthy second place in the standings behind Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein.

It's setting him up for another stealthy shot at the Formula E title that's so far eluded him, and perhaps for one more very big career opportunity with one of Formula E's big-name manufacturers.

Quite by chance 72 is also the same number of points Mortara had back in June 2021 when he sat on top of the Formula E championship after winning at Puebla in Mexico.

Life was good for Mortara right then. His Venturi team - Mercedes’ customer squad then, now running as Citroen after its spell as Maserati - was having what remains its most successful campaign, and with six races to go Mortara led the title race by 10 points over the quick but inconsistent Envision Audi driver Robin Frijns.

But then came a nightmare non-score at the two New York City E-Prixs. Mortara would normally have been out of contention because of that. But this was the season of high randomness in the qualifying format and after a second at Berlin he was right back in contention. As he formed on the grid for the final race, he was viewed as a joint title favourite with Mitch Evans and Nyck de Vries. 

Fate is a cruel mistress though, and can be especially vicious in Formula E. As he accelerated from the line he ducked behind Jake Dennis’ Andretti BMW - which in turn swerved right within two seconds of the start. The Venturi had zero time to react and it clattered into the back of Evans’ stranded Jaguar, rendering Mortara stunned. 

He was probably similarly stunned in Sao Paulo at the start of the current season, when he shot off the line in a comfortable fourth position only to be swiped by a locked-up red-and-black projectile coming from his right. It was his Mahindra team-mate De Vries.

Mortara recovered, but occasional nemesis Lucas di Grassi ended his race for good at the midway point. With a holed tub and zero points it didn’t bode well for what many tipped as a season when Mortara could revisit his 2021 and 2022 title challenging zeniths.

But Brazil was his nadir. After it came a sequence of second, sixth, second, fourth and fifth. From it has come that solid second position behind Wehrlein.

Current Formula E standings

1 Pascal Wehrlein 83
2 Edoardo Mortara 72
3 Mitch Evans 65
4 Antonio Felix da Costa 64
5 Nick Cassidy 51

Mortara has had a very curious Formula E career. He should have won his first race in Hong Kong in 2017 but unfathomably spun the win away to a grateful Sam Bird.

Thirteen races later at the same track Mortara finally got off the mark but did so only after the two drivers ahead of him were eliminated - Andre Lotterer with a puncture, and Bird eventually with a penalty for causing that puncture. Such was the lengthy investigation that Mortara didn’t get his victory trophy until a fortnight later at the inaugural Sanya E-Prix.

Mortara’s only raced for two teams over his nine seasons in Formula E. And in all but two of those seasons he’s challenged for victories - and taken six of them so far.

Part of the allure of Formula E for Mortara has been the experience of working through the process of helping teams – Venturi and Mahindra – to become stronger. You have to say that in each of those two case studies Mortara has more than played his part in that. 

He’s not been alone, because with him across most of his electric career has been technical talisman Jeremy Colancon. Colcancon, too, has made a tangible difference to Mahindra reaching up from rock bottom at the end of 2023 to possible title contender fewer than three years later.

All this has come as Mortara bats back against the unstoppable surge of time. He’s 40 next January, but is showing that far from being a barrier, age and experience is just a constituent part of his armoury, something which he playfully acknowledged to The Race just prior to the 2025-26 season beginning. 

“I know you've said that I'm actually quite old, that I'm closer, let's say, to the end of my career,” he said with a knowing smile.

“But I also know that in these kinds of championships, if you do well and if you show that you have good performances, you can be quite a valuable asset.

“What I loved in Formula E was firstly, the fact that it was a super, highly competitive championship. And secondly, I love being part of these challenges.

“I love the journey and I really hope that we can challenge for podiums, victories, and hopefully maybe some titles. This is what really excites me.”

And that might lead to another big late-career opportunity from the organisation he’s currently chasing in the championship.

Will Porsche court Mortara?

Porsche has vacancies in its new second factory team and with Ayhancan Guven believed to be a near certainty for one of them, a veteran hand may be desired as team-mate to the DTM convert who’s coming in with zero single-seater experience. 

With Wehrlein and Nico Mueller set to stay aboard the existing factory team, the new entity is currently being formed in Weissach with recruitment beginning.

When pushed on recruitment including drivers, Porsche team boss Florian Modlinger was hesitant - saying only that “we had a lot of interviews already, and let's see what's happening and how it's happening in the future”.

Mortara would fit the bill of an experienced addition, who would be a key ally in performance testing for Gen4, too. His current Mahindra contract ends after this season and its Gen4 development car will not test until June.

Mahindra boss Frederic Bertrand clearly wants Mortara to stay at the team but may face a considerable challenge should his driver receive an offer from Porsche.

Mortara has a strong relationship with Modlinger as the two worked together closely at the Audi Sport Team Abt squad for three seasons in DTM, including 2016 - when Mortara just missed out on the title at the last round to Marco Wittmann.

A Mortara/Guven - experience and raw promise - alliance at the second Porsche team would be seen as a highly desirable one in Porsche’s Weissach headquarters.