After a festive month away, Formula E returns this weekend to Mexico City and the Autodromo Hermanos Rodrigues for round two of season 11.
It was a chaotic season opener in Sao Paulo, which saw Mitch Evans take victory after starting at the back of the grid, and a McLaren 3-4 after they both served a drive through penalty.
Mexico City served as the season opener in the 2023/24 season, when Pascal Wehrlein took a lights-to-flag victory in his Tag Heuer Porsche, ahead of season two champion Sebastian Buemi and Nick Cassidy.
Having featured in every season of Formula E except season one and season seven, the Mexico City circuit is a shortened version of the Formula One track, with the circuit effectively cut in half, with an alternative stadium section layout as well.
The track layout
The best overtaking opportunity comes into turn one, a 90 degree corner following the start finish straight, followed by a switch back as well into the long turn two, giving drivers chance to battle side-by-side around the inner oval, before the sharp turn three which will surely be the scene of some contact this weekend.
Turn nine to eleven is a traditional Formula E chicane, giving drivers the chance to recover energy as well as a tight overtaking opportunity before the stadium section, including some moves that Max Verstappen could appreciate.
The turn 13-17 section inside the stadium can be the scene of some opportune, low speed divebombs, but is a tight challenge of making sure you don’t carry more speed into that section than the car ahead of you and end up without a front wing.
Turn 18 is an incredibly long, 180 degree, oval-style turn onto the start-finish straight, which is a front-left tyre’s worst nightmare.
With the new and evolved attack mode, overtaking into turn one will be a breeze, and with that, more traditional chaos is guaranteed.
As the Formula E season takes it shape after this race, and with a total of 16 races to get through, Mexico City is likely to be the venue where we get a proper feeling for who will be the title contenders this year.