Having secured podiums in their last two trips to Mexico City, Nissan e.dams look to make it three in a row at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in round three of the Formula E world championship.
Sébastien Buemi and teammate Maximilian Günther, will be looking to use the extra power provided by their Nissan Formula E Gen2 cars to get take full advantage of the tracks speed sections
Both drivers will benefit from power being increased by 20 kW to 220 kW in Race Mode and by 15 kW to 250 kW in Attack Mode.
“The track offers both technical challenges and a brilliant atmosphere, featuring a combination of twisty sections and a high-speed corner where car balance is key. As a team, we will need to find the best compromise between speed and energy consumption,” said Tommaso Volpe, general manager of Nissan Formula E who will be hoping both drivers take advantage of the numerous overtaking opportunities given on this track.
A major obstacle teams will face at this track is thermal issues with the high altitude making air cooling less efficient but co-team principals, Grégory and Olivier Driot believe it should not be too much of an issue, as they said, “Mexico has always been linked with thermal issues. Due to the track’s high altitude, the air density is lower than on all other circuits, reducing the air-cooling efficiency of the main race car components such as the motor and brakes.
“However, in these conditions is where a Formula E car highlights its genuine advantage over ICE-powered cars. Thanks to its highly efficient electric motor, the power unit heat is reduced to its minimum and cooling becomes much less of an issue.
“It’s the same for the brakes, as a Formula E car decelerates mainly with the electric motor regenerating energy into the battery instead of heating up the brake discs. Therefore, the cooling challenge is reduced to battery temperature monitoring.”
Buemi will be looking for a repeat of his season six visit to Mexico city where he earned a third place finish, in order to build on his underwhelming performance at the Diriyah E-prix last week. He went on to say, “This track in Mexico City has suited us quite well in the past. In Season 6 I finished on the podium, and in Season 5 we had great pace too. We have been competitive here in Mexico and I’m really looking forward to racing again on this exciting track.
“The opening double-header rounds in Diriyah weren’t that great for us in terms of results, but we made performance gains over the weekend. I’m hoping we can take learnings from Rounds 1 & 2 and show some good progress here in Mexico.”
Looking towards the weekend, Günther believes the crowd could make a difference in Mexico City and relishes the chance to put on a show in front of the stadium area, saying, “The feeling when you drive through there with the crowd and the atmosphere gives all of us drivers a real lift. Our motivation is sky high to perform well and have a good weekend. We worked well together in my first two races with the team in Diriyah. We weren’t in the points, but I feel that we made some good progress in many areas and we want to put on a good performance in Mexico.”
