André Lotterer enjoyed a solid start to life at the Avalanche Andretti Formula E outfit, after leaving the Mexico City E-Prix with fourth place to his name following an impressive last-lap move on rookie Jake Hughes.
The former TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team driver has seemingly fitted into Andretti beautifully, with the German having shown good pace all weekend at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. His pace was so good in fact, that he managed to get all the way to the Semi-Finals of the duels, where he was comfortably beaten by polesitter Lucas di Grassi. A mistake by Lotterer at the hairpin allowed di Grassi to make it to the Final with ease, whilst the German driver had to settle for fourth on the grid.
Lotterer had a very good race on the whole, but did slip to fifth behind Pascal Wehrlein, who was faster than the bulk of the top five. He had been in podium contention for the entire race, with di Grassi having held up a gaggle of cars for the majority of the race; however, there was nothing Lotterer could do about the former Champion. Ultimately, a last-lap lunge on Hughes promoted the new Andretti driver to fourth, where he went on to finish the season-opening round of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.
His result secured a tremendous one-four for Andretti, with Jake Dennis having claimed the first victory of the Gen3 era. Reflecting on the race, Lotterer admits that being on the podium with Dennis “would have been nice”, but that he simply got a “bit stuck” behind di Grassi and Hughes.
“Great result for the team and congratulations to Jake. It’s amazing for the Avalanche Andretti team to start the season with a win and a P4 for me. I’m happy for the points, but it would have been nice to be on the podium together. I was trying hard, but I couldn’t get past. The way the race was I was just a bit stuck behind the two cars with di Grassi backing up.
“I didn’t want to take too many risks either especially with this being the first race and making moves being a bit more tricky than in the GEN2 cars. I think we can be happy taking these points home and also the Porsche powertrain showed good potential with Pascal in P2. Hopefully, we can take this momentum into the second race of the season.”
