Formula E in Mexico: Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein wins 2nd free practice, Edo Mortara crashes

Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein was the fastest in the 2nd free practice session of Formula E in Mexico. He narrowly beat Jean-Eric Vergne (DS Penske) with a best time of 1:13.496 minutes. Third place went to Sergio Sette Camara, underlining the strong early form of the Nio 333 team. Edo Mortara afforded himself a mistake and hit the wall with his Maserati.

The 2nd free practice session began punctually at 14:30 German time - under the rising morning sun of Mexico City. The first notable incident at a cool 6 degrees Celsius was a braked by Edo Mortara at the end of the start and finish straight. Then, after five minutes, the first yellow flag: Sam Bird stopped with his Jaguar in the Stadio section (turn 15) and reported over the radio: "MCU error, MCU error!" By this he meant the engine control unit. After a short time, Bird was able to restart his Jaguar and continue.

The next to go straight at Turn 1 was Sacha Fenestraz in the Nissan. From then on, however, it was more about lap times. Pascal Wehrlein set the fastest time and led the field after the first ten minutes. Behind him: Nio 333 driver Sergio Sette Camara and Porsche teammate Antonio Felix da Costa. Then McLaren rookie Jake Hughes sped up and ousted Wehrlein from first place, with Jake Dennis and Sebastien Buemi behind him. Later, Lucas di Grassi slid in between the two.

At the halfway point of the session, Edo Mortara suffered another severe braking incident. On the approach to turn 5, he skidded and then hit the grass. He turned around in the run-off zone and continued.

Mortara hits the road

A few minutes later, however, he didn't get off so lightly: Mortara came out too far in the fast right-hand bend "Peraltada" and hit the side of the wall. This broke the suspension of his left rear wheel. The third overall in 2022 tried to drag himself back to the pits, but eventually had to park his Maserati on the side of the track.

In the last five minutes, many drivers tried to improve their best times. The first to do so with flying colors was Mitch Evans - first place for the Jaguar driver. A little later, however, Sergio Sette Camara undercut his time. Meanwhile, both McLaren cars went straight into turn 1 almost simultaneously. Oliver Rowland (Mahindra) did the same. Dan Ticktum set absolute best times in sectors 1 and 3, but lost a lot of time in the second section. Still, Nio 333 with considerable pace.

In the last minute, Wehrlein took the lead again with a hundredth of a second ahead of Sette Camara. Although one was even faster: Jake Dennis in the Andretti drove almost four tenths of a second ahead. But his lap time was cancelled a little later because he had exceeded the tack limits. Jean-Eric Vergne improved to second place, but no one came close to Wehrlein's best time. The second session of Mexico thus went to Porsche.

It's Season 8's #MexicoCityEPrix winner @PWehrlein that goes fastest in FP2!

The German goes 0.004s quicker than @JeanEricVergne ⚡

- ABB FIA Formula E World Championship (@FIAFormulaE) January 14, 2023

Mexico qualifying starts at 4:40 p.m. German time. ran.de will show the session in a livestream. The division of the qualifying groups had already taken place on Friday.

Results & times