Historic Mexico round

It was a historic Jaguar I-PACE eTrophy day at the second round of the season, which was run in Mexico City.

The first piece of history was already written Saturday morning local time, when Katherine Legge took the first ever Pole Position for a female in electric racing. It was not only a big achievement for her, but with Rahal Letterman Lanigan teammate Bryan Sellers in P2, which made the team estatic.

The winner from the first round, Simon Evans, had qualified in P3, while the VIP driver of the weekend, Salvador Duran, would start in fourth place.

Legge and Sellers got a good start, and managed to keep Evans behind. Duran took a chance around the outside, and got past Evens in Turn 1.

Duran was really on the move, and tried to overtake Sellers in the stadium section – but without getting past.

Evans lost another position when Caca Bueno made it past him on the first lap.

Full Course Yellow was deployed on the second lap, when some debris had to be picked up.

Thankfully it didn’t take long before the race was restarted – but only a few seconds later, we had big problems.

Caca Bueno tried to overtake Salvador Duran, but Duran didn’t want to give up the place, and the two cars made a contact. That gave something of a domino effect, where Simon Evans also had to avoid the two clashing rivals.

This wasn’t the best piece of driving from a guest driver, resulting in a huge influence in the Championship standings, since Evans dropped all the way back to P11!

Evans thankfully had an almost unharmed car, so he could start advancing again. There was a bit of karma, with Duran retiring on the spot, with broken steering. So even though the cars are tough, you can’t do bumper cars with them…

Stefan Rzadzinski was among the unlucky drivers, with the rear of his Jaguar I-PACE eTrophy being pushed deep into the car, and the bumper scraping behind the car. He was able to continue – in P10.

Legge was still leading the race at the halfway point from Sellers, while Sergio Jimenez was in P3, ahead of Caca Bueno.

Team owner Bobby Rahal was able to sit in the paddock area, biting his nails, since his two drivers, Legge and Sellers, was driving bumper to bumper with each other, with 10 minutes to go.

The two Saudi Racing driver in Pro-Am Ahmed Bin-Khanen and Bandar Alesayi were also battling close, but with a bit more room between the cars. Bin Khanen also carried some damage from Duran’s brain fade manoeuvre, so his rear bumper was also dragging behind the car.

Legge was really under pressure for the last 6 minutes of the race from Sellers. The two drivers only had to focus about each other, since Jimenez was several seconds behind.

There was a bit of chopping and changing on the penultimate lap, when Alesayi made it past Bin-Khanen, plus giving the opportunity for Evens to get past.

But out front we had Katherine Legge winning the race in front of Bryan Sellers and Sergio Jimenez.

Bandar Alesayi won Pro-Am ahead of Ahmed Bin-Khanen and Qi Lin.

The Championship is now led by Katherine Legge, who has a one-point gap to Simon Evans, Sergio Jimenez and Bryan Sellers, who are equal on points. Caca Bueno and Stefan Rzadzinski has fallen a bit behind in the standings, for the time being.

Pro-Am is led by Bandar Alesayi ahead of Ahmed Bin-Khanen. The two have a huge gap to Tao Wang and Qi Lin.

The next round of the Jaguar I-PACE eTrophy 2018/19 will be run on 10 March in Hong Kong.