Hello and welcome back after a 6 week break and a lot has happened since then: Opel (who announced they are entering Formula E prior to the Madrid ePrix) announced their first driver signing - their test and development driver, Formula E formally launched their Gen 4 car, Mitch Evans announced his departure from Jaguar, Lucas Di Grassi announced his retirement from competitive racing, and Porsche revealed another heritage celebration livery - the "Pink Pig" livery ran by the Porsche 917/20 during the 24 hours of Le Mans in 1971. I will go into more detail about Gen 4 and Porsche's tribute livery during the introduction to the review of the 2nd race of this doubleheader. Also this race will use PitBoost and will be slightly longer to compensate.
Opel's test and development driver is Sophia Floersch, a German female racing driver who has primarily competed in single seater racing throughout her career, but has dovetailed it with endurance racing commitments. While her results aren't amazing, neither have some of the teams she has driven and I'm sure Opel have their reasons announcing their test driver before announcing their main drivers of which we may already know one.
Based off of some of last season's and this season's the radio communications he has had with the team, it's clear Mitch feels like he is no longer the main focus of the Jaguar and is leaving for a team where he will be. It is rumoured that this team will be Opel (according to The Race), as their other driver is likely to be a rookie and will need that veteran presence to help guide them as well as the team (seeing as this is the first time Stellantis will intentionally own and run a Formula E team), so a lot of people will be focussing on Mitch if he goes there. I do however, have some concern over Opel because I feel like race management-wise, Stellantis is inferior to Jaguar as evidenced by the strategy blunders they have had over last few races along with a clear race pace deficit to Jaguar and Porsche. Although, one could argue that Porsche were in a similar position in Season 8 (last season before Gen 3 regulations) and they powered the championship winning driver in the next season (albeit a customer driver). Mitch's likely replacement is current Jaguar test and reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne.
I think Lucas is probably retiring at the right time as right now, his teammate is the better driver as shown by his recent qualifying performances although, Lucas is more consistent so I think he probably could have continued on and be no worser pace-wise. Between him and Sebastien Buemi (the original superstars of Formula E), I think he was the better driver as while Sebastien sits high on the all-time wins list, Lucas was that more consistent and come the ned of the season, looked closer to the title than Sebastien did. Lola haven't announced his replacement yet, but I believe it will either be a rookie driver that they have run in a rookie test (e.g: Richard Verschoor) or a veteran who is underperforming in their current equipment, but has previous form that has kept them in this championship for so long (e.g: Norman Nato).
The next Formula E race will be the 2026 Monaco ePrix doubleheader with the first race on 16th May 2026 at 13:00 UTC and the second race on 17th May 2026 at 13:00 UTC. You can find out where to watch it here.

Qualifying

Not much of note happened during Free Practice, with the only things of concern for the stewards were the 2 Cupra Kiro drivers speeding in the Pit Lane during FP1 and Taylor Barnard caught impeding Lucas Di Grassi during FP1 also. In the defence of Taylor, his team didn't let him know and by the time he saw Lucas it was too late although, it didn't impede him too much as Taylor would top Free Practice 1.
Now to Qualifying. Group A consisted of: Pascal Wehrlein, Mitch Evans, Nick Cassidy, Oliver Rowland, Sebastien Buemi, Joel Eriksson, Taylor Barnard, Jean-Eric Vergne, Norman Nato, and Felipe Drugovich. The optimal way to achieve the fastest lap required multiple warm up laps, meaning that a good chunk of the session resulted in unrepresentative times. The top 4 in group A and thus made it to the Duel stage were: Pascal, Felipe, Oliver and Nick.
Group B went next and consisted of Edoardo Mortara, Antonio Felix da Costa, Nico Mueller, Jake Dennis, Dan Ticktum, Josep Maria 'Pepe' Marti, Nyck de Vries, Max Guenther, Zane Maloney, and Lucas Di Grassi. This session wasn't as clean as the first, as Lucas would slide on the exit of turn 4 and hit the wall with the left rear of his car and damage his suspension, prematurely ending his qualifying session. Another who wouldn't make it would be Antonio, as he could muster 5th in the group like his fellow Free Practice leader Taylor Barnard who achieved the same result in group A. The 4 that made it into Duel stage from group B were: Dan, Edoardo, Zane, and Nico.
The 1st Quarter-Final was between Oliver and Felipe, with the former winning by 0.509 seconds after a mistake into turn 2 for Felipe and the 2nd was between Nick and Pascal with the latter winning by 0.075 seconds, but Pascal would clip the inside wall of turn 4 and in his opinion, bend his steering. Quarter-Final 3 was between Zane and Edoardo, which saw the latter advance by a huge 0.76 seconds and the final Quarter-Final was between Nico and Dan which saw the latter moving on by 0.405 seconds to Semi-Final 2 after Nico went wide through turn 2. Semi-Final 1 was between Pascal and Oliver, which the former won by 0.116 seconds and Semi-Final 2 was between Edoardo and Dan, with the former winning by 0.349 seconds. The Final saw Edoardo winning by 0.156 seconds and taking his and Mahindra's third pole of the year as well as tying him with Pascal Wehrlein for most poles at a single venue at 4 (Pascal has 4 poles at Mexico City).

Race

Overall Drivers' Championship

Nico Mueller wins his maiden ePrix from Nick Cassidy in 2nd and Oliver Rowland in 3rd. It was a fairly clean race, as we continue our streak of no added laps to the ePrix. However, this circuit rewards energy saving and so their were occasional slight contact between drivers as they all lifted early at different points, such as between Jake Dennis and Pascal Wehrlein on lap 19 (unseen on TV, as Pascal had dropped back early to save an extreme amount of energy) which broke a tyre valve on the latter's front right tyre. The only retirement was Dan Ticktum, who suffered a temporary loss of power around lap 24/25 (the only shot we see of him is on lap 24 off-line on through turn 8 which isn't a corner, it's just the brake zone for turn 9) and by the time it rebooted itself, he was dead last and he retired on lap 37 as any safety car intervention from then on was not going to save his race. The winning strategy today was extreme energy-saving as our Nico Mueller spent exactly 15 laps inside the top 5 and 13 of those were: a; consecutive, and b; the last 13 laps! Energy-saving was so great that the 2 Lola-Yamaha cars led 8 laps before the pits stops and the drivers crawled off the dummy grid in an effort not spend energy! I think the more available energy thanks to PitBoost made this race less extreme than race 2, but not by much. The 8 different lap leaders ties with Sao Paulo for most this season so far - we have another race coming up at this circuit.

1. Edoardo Mortara (+1)
2. Pascal Wehrlein (-1)
3. Mitch Evans (=0)
4. Nico Mueller (+1)
5. Antonio Felix da Costa (-1)
6. Oliver Rowland (+1)

Only 1 driver does not have less points under the alternative format compared to real life and that is the championship leader Edoardo Mortara as he ties his points total. The driver who has the most points compared to real life is Max Guenther, who has 27 more points under the alternative format (35) compared to real life (8). There are differences between the standings and the driver who gains the most position's under the alternative format is Max who gains 4 places to be 12th under alternative format compared to 16th in real life, while the driver who loses the most positions is Dan Ticktum who drops 3 places to be 14th under the alternative format, but is 11th in real life.
Below are the overall Drivers' Championship standings:

Customer Trophy for Drivers

The class is won by Jake Dennis with 2nd in class going to Pepe Marti, and 3rd to Sebastien Buemi. Dan Ticktum leads from the opening set of corners until he pits at the end of lap 19, handing the lead to Jake who pit at the end of the next lap and hands the lead to Pepe. Pepe pits on lap 25 and retains the lead after rejoining, only handing the lead to Jake when he takes Attack Mode on lap 30 and retakes through turn 1 on the next lap. Jake takes Attack Mode a lap later and it helps him out-accelerate Pepe on lap 36 on the exit of turn 10, handing him the class lead and ultimately, the class win. Jake's win puts him back into the lead of class standings for the only change in the standings. Dan Ticktum's 4th DNF already has effectively taken him out of title contention and possibly fighting for any other position.
Below are the Customer Trophy for Drivers standings:

Nelson Piquet Jr Trophy

The winner of the class is Nico Mueller, with 2nd going to Pepe Marti and 3rd to Felipe Drugovich. With his 11th Nelson Piquet Jr Trophy (NPJT) win, Nico takes the outright record for most NPJT wins, also he becomes the first NPJT driver to win a race outright since Norman Nato at the Berlin II ePrix in Season 7. Zane Maloney leads after the first sector and all the way until he pits at the ned of lap 24, thus giving the lead to Pepe which he has until he pits on lap 25 and rejoins behind Nico. Nico holds the lead before briefly giving it up on lap 28 through turn 2 as he takes Attack Mode, but powers past Zane into turn 9 on the same lap and doesn't relinquish the lead from there on out, including the overall lead from lap 29 onwards. There is a change of championship position as Joel Eriksson's last place in class costs him 2nd place in the class standings to Pepe. To me, this shows the effect a DNF can have on your standings, as for the majority of this season so far Pepe has been the 2nd best driver in the class but it has taken him until now for that to reflect in the standings.
Below are the Nelson Piquet Jr Trophy standings:

Overall Teams' Championship

With the win, Porsche Formula E Team continue lead the standings under both formats with Jaguar TCS Racing and Mahindra Racing 2nd and 3rd respectively under both formats. Porsche are the only team not to score more points under the alternative format, as they are only 1 point off their real life points score (158) under the alternative format (157). The 1 change between the 2 formats in terms of the standings is that Envision Racing are ahead of Nissan Formula E Team under the alternative format but are behind in real life. The biggest gainer in terms of points is DS Penske who have 44 more points under the alternative format (70) compared to real life (26).
Below are the overall Teams' Championship standings:

Customer Teams' Championship

Despite Andretti Formula E winning the Customer class, Envision Racing still lead the standings, but only by 2 points. Cupra Kiro are now over a class win behind of the class leader and are probably out of contention for the title now.
Below are the Customer Teams' Championship standings:

Manufacturers' Cup

Porsche continues to lead the standings in Manufacturers' Cup under both formats with points total of 177 (alternative) and 205 (real life). Jaguar are 2nd in the standings under both formats and Stellantis are also 3rd under both formats. There is no difference in the standings between the 2 formats except for the points totals as Porsche and Jaguar are the only manufacturers to have less points under the alternative format, with Porsche having the biggest discrepancy at 28 points. The biggest gainer in terms of points is still Lola-Yamaha, whose 68 points under the alternative format is 45 points greater than their real life total of 23.
Below are the Manufacturers' Cup standings: