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2026 Hankook Mexico City ePrix Review

2026 Hankook Mexico City ePrix Review

Welcome back! The website has been fully updated and it is not only thing that has changed. The circuit has had the chicane after turn 8 removed (where David Beckmann and Mitch Evans collided last year) as well as Porsche running a tribute livery to the Porsche 550 which won the under 1500cc sports car class (as well as 3rd overall) in the 1954 Carrera Panamerica with Hans Herrmann, who passed away just before the race weekend. Between 1950 and 1954, the Carrera Panamerica was a point-to-point rally across Mexico that gained an infamous reputation for being dangerous as 27 people would die over those 4 years, with 9 of those being spectators. It was revived in 1988 as a 'classic' event (classic-looking cars with modern safety built in).
The next Formula E race will be the 2026 Miami ePrix on 31st January 2026 at 19:00 UTC and you can find out where to watch it here.

Qualifying

Group A consisted of: Jake Dennis, Nick Cassidy, Nico Mueller, Joel Eriksson, Nyck de Vries, Antonio Felix da Costa, Taylor Barnard, Jean-Eric Vergne, Edoardo Mortara, and Norman Nato. There weren't any issues on track, with the exception for Nick who had a lap-time deleted for track limits Very few made improvements on their final runs, with only the Citroens and Taylor making improvements on their final laps. Jean-Eric also had a 3-place grid penalty to serve after overtaking under Full-Course Yellow in the previous race. The 4 from the group that would move onto the Duel stage were: Jake, Nico, Taylor and Edoardo.
Group B went next and consisted of Oliver Rowland, Pascal Wehrlein, Max Guenther, Sebastien Buemi, Zane Maloney, Felipe Drugovich, Josep Maria 'Pepe' Marti, Mitch Evans, Lucas Di Grassi, and Dan Ticktum. This session is cleaner than the first, with only Dan's late braking into turn 1 providing any form of jeopardy. However, unlike Group A, no one made any improvements on their final run which hurt Pascal Wehrlein as he would not make the top 4 and would qualify 6th in the group. 3 drivers in this session had penalties to serve coming into this race, with: Felipe having the same penalty as Jean-Eric for the same reason, Lucas also having a 5-place grid penalty for his collision with Edoardo last time out in Sao Paulo and Pepe having enough penalties to put him back that he would've had to start all the way back in Sao Paolo. His punishment for his crash last time out would see him start at the back of the grid regardless of where he qualified and he would have 60-place grid penalty (which would be converted to a 10 second stop-and-go penalty) as the crash had damaged his inverter, gearbox and MGU (Motor Generator Unit) enough that they needed changing after FP2, a session in which he did no running. The 4 that made it into Duel stage from group B were: Sebastien, Dan, Mitch, and Oliver.
The 1st Quarter-Final was between Taylor and Nico, with the former winning and the 2nd was between Edoardo and Jake with, again, the former winning and moving onto Semi-Final 1. Quarter-Final 3 was between Mitch and Dan, which saw, for the 3rd consecutive time, the former advance to Semi-final 2 and the final Quarter-Final was between Oliver and Sebastien which saw Sebastien moving on to the Semi-Finals, bucking the trend in the session. Semi-Final 1 was between Edoardo and Taylor, which Taylor won and Semi-Final 2 was between Mitch and Sebastien, with the latter winning. The Final saw Taylor setting the faster time, however, he made a mistake at the final corner and exceeded track limits, thus handing pole position to Sebastien.

Race

Overall Drivers' Championship

Nick Cassidy wins the race from Edoardo Mortara in 2nd and Oliver Rowland in 3rd. The race was billed as one of the harder to overtake at, so the fact the race winner started 13th suggests that qualifying means less than the commentary team thinks.
The race is fairly clean, with the problem area being turns 5 and 6. That said, a few moments occur in turn 1, such as off the start as Sebastien Buemi out-brakes himself going into said corner on the first lap and drops all the way to the back. He fights back, but picks up a puncture after sudden bunch up when the FCY called on lap 18 (later transitioned to a safety car lap 20) is called when Nyck de Vries loses power going into to turn 1 on lap 17 and thus ends up almost lap down in the end as the puncture is discovered lap 20 and safety car comes in on lap 21. There are 2 noteworthy incidents in turns 5 and 6 with the first 1 occurring on lap 18 as the FCY is called, where Antonio Felix da Costa and Oliver make wheel-to-wheel contact as Antonio moves left before braking for turn 5 to avoid running into the back of Max Guenther and into the trajectory of Oliver. This sends the pair wide, with Oliver having to go off-road for a bit. The next incident at turns 5 and 6 is on lap 25 where a late dive by Nick on Antonio, who in turn moves across to defend, sees the pair collide and sends Antonio into Max. Max then spins around and in the ensuing chaos, an innocent Dan Ticktum is clipped by an out of control Antonio which effectively ends the race for the pair as both pull into the pits to retire. There is another incident turn 4 at lap 33 between Edoardo and Jake Dennis, as the latter makes a late dive into the turn with the last of his attack mode and the former moves late and clips Jake's front wing, damaging it.
Nick spent most of the race between 9th-11th position (he made 2 places on lap 1) and despite using up his attack mode allocation before those around him, he could win because he had more energy available than his closest challenger as well as the fighting behind meant that those faster drivers wasted precious time and energy that they couldn't get back.
Here is the top 6 under the alternative format and in brackets is a number indicating how many positions they have gained or lost compared to where they were going into the race.

  1. Nick Cassidy (+2)
  2. Jake Dennis (-1)
  3. Oliver Rowland (-1)
  4. Pascal Wehrlein (=0)
  5. Nico Mueller (=0)
  6. Edoardo Mortara (+12)

3 drivers have less points under the alternative format compared to real life: Nick, Jake, and Oliver, whose points totals under the alternative format are 36, 33, and 33 respectively (Jake's win puts him ahead on countback) which compares to real life points totals of 40, 36, and 34 respectively. Edoardo and Dan to match their points totals across both formats and the driver who has the most points compared to real life is Nico, who has 8 more points under the alternative format (20) compared to real life (12). There are differences between the standings and the driver who gains the most position's under the alternative format is Nico, who gains 2 to be 5th under alternative format compared to 7th in real life, while the driver who loses the most positions is Sebastien who is 11th under the alternative format, but 9th in real life.
Below are the overall Drivers' Championship standings:

Screenshot of the first 7 positions of the Drivers' Championship, outputted by afepf_viewer_program.py Screenshot of the positions 8 to 14 of the Drivers' Championship, outputted by afepf_viewer_program.py Screenshot of the positions 15 to 20 of the Drivers' Championship, outputted by afepf_viewer_program.py

Customer Trophy for Drivers

The class is won by Jake Dennis again with 2nd in class going to a redeemed Pepe Marti and 3rd to Joel Eriksson. Jake Leads from lap 1, having overtaken Dan Ticktum into turn 1 at the start. Dan gets back on lap 10, overtaking Jake on the exit of turn 8 thanks to attack mode. Jake responds on lap 16 with an overtaking manoeuvre through turn 4 and that is the last move for the class lead for the rest of the race as after Dan's demise, no one else gets close to Jake Dennis. The standings are the same as they were going into this race.
Below are the Customer Trophy for Drivers standings:

Screenshot of the Customer Trophy for Drivers standings, outputted by afepf_viewer_program.py

Nelson Piquet Jr Trophy

The winner of the class is Pepe Marti with 2nd going to Nico Mueller and 3rd to Joel Eriksson. Having ostensibly out-qualifying everyone else in the class, Nico holds a commanding lead from lap 1 until the final lap where Pepe makes his move (it's not clear where as we don't see it, but it's before turn 5) and wins the class in his 2nd start. Like with the Customer Trophy for Drivers, there is no change of championship position compared to before the race. Another thing to note is that Joel and Felipe Drugovich have the same amount points across both BTCC exclusive driver championships as well as being in the same position in both championships.
Below are the Nelson Piquet Jr Trophy standings:

Screenshot of the Nelson Piquet Jr Trophy standings, outputted by afepf_viewer_program.py

Overall Teams' Championship

With the win, Citroen Racing Formula E Team lead the standings under both formats with Porsche Formula E Team and Nissan Formula E Team 2nd and 3rd respectively under the alternative format, while in real life it is Andretti Formula E 2nd instead of Porsche and Nissan stay 3rd. Citroen are the only team to score less points under the alternative format, being 1 point down under the alternative format (43 compared to 44). Andretti are the only team to tie points totals across both formats, but everyone else has more points under alternative format, which means they swap places with Porsche and are the biggest loser in terms of positions. There are other changes between the 2 formats in terms of the standings as: DS Penske swap with Mahindra to be 5th under the alternative format instead of 6th (where they are in real life) and Jaguar TCS Racing's season is slightly less bad as it is 8th under the alternative format (the biggest gainer in terms of positions), shuffling Cupra Kiro and Lola Yamaha ABT Formula E Team down a place compared to where they are in real life. Penske and Jaguar gained most points under the alternative format compared to real life as they both gain 10 points over their real life total (20 and 0 respectively).
Below are the overall Teams' Championship standings:

Screenshot of the first 5 positions of the Teams' Championship, outputted by afepf_viewer_program.py Screenshot of the first positions 6 to 10 positions of the Teams' Championship, outputted by afepf_viewer_program.py

Customer Teams' Championship

As Jake Dennis won the Customer Driver class again, Andretti Formula E lead the class with 40 points over Envision Racing who have 32 and Cupra Kiro in 3rd with 17. Only the results of 1 driver for each team has contributed the points for their team and they are: Jake Dennis (Andretti), Joel Eriksson, (Envision), and Pepe Marti (Kiro). There are no changes in terms of positions compared to before and probably won't be any until both Andrettis and/or both Envisions retire from a race.
Below are the Customer Teams' Championship standings:

Screenshot of the Customer Teams' Championship, outputted by afepf_viewer_program.py

Manufacturers' Cup

Stellantis continues to lead the standings in Manufacturers' Cup under the alternative format with points total of 61 and now also leads in real life too with a points total of 62. Porsche are still 2nd under the alternative format with 48 points and maintain the same position in real life too, with a points total of 55. 3rd under both formats goes to Nissan who have 43 points under the alternative format and 39 in real life. Stellantis, Porsche and Jaguar have less points under the alternative format, with Jaguar having 15 points under alternative format compared to 18 in real life. There are changes between the standings, as Jaguar and Lola swap places so Jaguar is ahead of Lola in real life but behind under the alternative format. Lola has the biggest positive points difference between their alternative points total and their real life total at 14 (18 point under the alternative format and 4 in real life) while Porsche has biggest negative points difference between the points totals at 7.
Below are the Manufacturers' Cup standings:

Screenshot of the Manufacturers' Cup standings, outputted by afepf_viewer_program.py