First Formula E points after 60 places grid penalty: Marti finishes seventh in Mexico City

Pepe Marti had an explosive start to his Formula E career. In the first race, the Spaniard, who had previously enjoyed success in Formula 2, drove to a top five result before a serious mistake led to a violent accident, which earned him a severe penalty for the Mexico City E-Prix. It was all the more sensational that the Spaniard was still able to score his first points in the Formula E World Championship in Mexico!

Before the big success, however, there was another setback. In the 2nd free practice session, the Cupra-Kiro team found a technical problem with its car. Due to a defective inverter, it had to be replaced, and the team also had to change the electric motor and the gearbox. The result was 60 penalty places for the E-Prix. As this number of penalty places could of course not be offset against his starting position, Marti had to serve a 10-second stop-and-go penalty on the first lap of the race, losing around 40 seconds on the entire field.

Safety car enables to catch up

After serving the penalty, the Spaniard had no choice but to save energy, avoid being lapped and hope for a safety car. Nyck de Vries' retirement shortly after the middle of the race brought the longed-for neutralisation, and Marti was at least able to catch up with the field again. This put them in a perfect position for the rest of the race. The young Spaniard still had both attack modes and around seven per cent more energy available than the competitors in front of him.

A race to catch up followed that you would expect from an experienced rider. With the help of his first attack mode, he made it up to 9th place, while the second phase with the extra power moved him up another place. Finally, he overtook Nico Müller on the last lap and crossed the finish line in seventh place - six championship points for the Cupra Kiro rookie!

PE-POINTS! ✨ A race to remember (for the right reasons this time) #MexicoEPrix #FormulaE pic.twitter.com/sNgdCqzODU

— CUPRA KIRO (@KiroRaceCo) January 10, 2026

Marti extremely satisfied with his team

This result now puts him well above his team-mate Dan Ticktum in the world championship, who, in contrast, also seemed to be plagued by bad luck. Marti summarises the race in one sentence: "All in all, that's a great result!"

The thanks to his team were much more detailed: "First of all, we would not have been able to fight for points without the team, as they had built a new car after Sao Paulo that worked well. We executed the stop-and-go penalty correctly, which doesn't always go smoothly, and the team did an excellent job strategically," he praised.

Pepe Martí charged from the back in Mexico to secure his first Formula E championship points 🇲🇽⚡️@Hankook_Sport #MexicoCityEPrix pic.twitter.com/lDiJSBIkiw

— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) January 12, 2026

Marti has already established himself as a promising talent in the electric racing series after his second race and has already scored significantly more points than his predecessor David Beckmann in the entire 2024/25 season. We will find out whether his performance in Miami will be just as good again on 31 January, when Formula E holds its third round of the season in the USA.