DUBAI: ROKiT Venturi Racing and Edoardo Mortara returned to winning ways at the Autodromo Miguel E. Abed, storming to a dominant victory at the Puebla E-Prix on Sunday night.
After finishing on the podium one day earlier, the Monegasque team maintained its form into the second leg of the double-header event in Mexico, with the Swiss-Italian driver taking first place.
“I’m incredibly proud of the team and Edo for delivering our second victory in Formula E but also for doing it in such a dominant fashion,” said Susie Wolff, ROKiT Venturi Racing team principal. “Throughout the season, we’ve shown that we have the pace and potential to be at the front of the field, it was just about putting everything together and that’s what happened in Puebla. Two races, two podiums. Forty points on the board. We really couldn’t ask for any more from this weekend.”
Mortara started the Formula E season with a second-place finish at the first of the Diriyah E-Prix’s double header, but suffered a serious accident in practice the following day. Having recovered, he now leads the season’s standings after his latest win.
In qualifying, Mortara had claimed a season-best starting position of P3 while team-mate Norman Nato took P12, sitting in a prime position to challenge for points.
Taking the chequered flag, Mortara crossed the finishing line in P1, leading 27 of the race’s 32 laps enroute to ROKiT Venturi Racing’s second victory in the FIA Formula E World Championship and third podium of season seven.
“What a weekend. Yesterday, we finished third on the podium and today, we went two steps further to take the win. Scoring 40 points on one race weekend alone is incredible and after winning today, I’m honestly speechless,” said Mortara. “This has been the best race weekend of my entire career. The team delivered an excellent strategy today but that didn’t make it a straightforward drive.”
He added: “In the final 10 laps, Pascal (Wehrlein) kept me under immense pressure, especially because he had more usable energy. This meant that we had to find a way to save more energy without sacrificing speed.
“It was difficult to resist him but we didn’t make any mistakes and we were able to maximise our potential to come out on top.
“This is an incredibly proud moment for both myself and the team and standing on the top step. I can’t quite believe it.”
After dropping down to P16 on lap 1, Nato fought through the field to threaten for points in his recovery drive, however, an accident on lap 12 forced the Frenchman to retire.
After claiming 25 points and 40 points in two races, Mortara now leads the Drivers’ Championship with a 10-point advantage while ROKiT Venturi Racing sits in P6 in the Teams’ Standings, holding 83 points.
