Mexico City E-Prix: Hughes tops wet FP2 as further rain threatens

Jake Hughes topped a moist however drying second observe session for the Mexico Metropolis E-Prix, with additional rain a menace for Saturday’s System E race.

The Maserati MSG driver posted a 1m25.808s within the last moments as drivers and groups scrambled to get on prime of the brand new Gen3 Evo machines and Hankook tyre on the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez within the moist.

The DS Penske’s of Jean-Eric Vergne and Maximilian Guenther led the instances within the opening phases of the 40-minute session, every taking turns on the prime of the leaderboard as they traded quickest laps within the ever-improving situations.

Guenther grew to become the primary driver to set a sub 1m33s lap – posting a 1m32.732s – earlier than Vergne lowered the tempo to a 1m32.484s after quarter-hour.

The Frenchman then set a 1m31.688s which remained the very best time on the midway level of proceedings, earlier than his team-mate quickly moved again to the highest with a 1m31.368s.

Jake Dennis’s 1m30.766s moved him to the highest heading into the ultimate 10 minutes, with Vergne besting the Andretti driver’s time by 0.155s.

The British driver pushed an excessive amount of on his subsequent flying lap and located himself within the run-off space at Flip 1 earlier than rejoining, ultimately ending fourth on the leaderboard.

Instances started to drastically fall within the last minutes, Vergne posting a 1m28.064s with reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein smashing that point together with his personal 1m26.577s.

Jaguar’s Nick Cassidy, who had a spin within the stadium part, then moved prime with a 1m25.965s and whereas Wehrlein improved together with his last lap, bringing the hole right down to 0.197s, his time might have been even higher having been baulked within the last nook by David Beckmann.

However each Cassidy and Wehrlein have been surpassed by Hughes, who completed 0.157s away from the sphere together with his last effort.

With situations difficult and simply over an hour between FP2 and qualifying which means any injury would have large ramifications for the remainder of the day, a number of drivers performed solely a handful of laps throughout the session earlier than situations improved.

This included championship chief and winner within the Sao Paulo season-opener Mitch Evans, who waited till the ultimate quarter-hour earlier than registering a time and ultimately completed the session in eleventh.

Hughes’ quickest lap proved to be practically 15 seconds slower than the quickest lap set within the dry FP1 session held on Friday night, when Antonio Felix da Costa set the quickest time with a 1m10.855s.

The Porsche driver completed simply 0.091s away from Taylor Barnard, who continued his spectacular type having change into the youngest System E podium finisher in Sao Paulo.

Taylor Barnard, NEOM McLaren System E Crew

Photograph by: Andreas Beil

Nissan’s Oliver Rowland took third, whereas Wehrlein was the quickest runner having not used the 350kW Assault Mode in fourth and on the wheel of a brand new chassis after his spectacular crash in Brazil.

Whereas no driver suffered injury in FP2 regardless of the treacherous situations, Cupra Kiro’s Beckmann broken the left-rear suspension on his automotive in FP1 after making contact with the wall by way of the Peraltada within the closing phases however was in a position to get better to the pits.

Mexico Metropolis E-Prix FP2 outcome