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Mahindra left London without the Formula E victory its pace appeared to deserve, but with a result that carried greater championship significance: third place in the teams’ standings.
Nyck de Vries and Edoardo Mortara delivered a maiden front-row lockout for the Banbury-based team in qualifying. De Vries claimed pole after eliminating championship contenders Mitch Evans and Pascal Wehrlein in the duel stages, while Mortara reached the front row despite driving a car with bent steering.
The M12 Electro again looked like the strongest package in the field. De Vries controlled the opening phase ahead of Mortara, making a Mahindra 1-2 seem realistic while the usual frontrunners fought lower down the order over the drivers’ title. The team’s pace had already been evident in the weekend’s earlier running, as Mortara set the pace in London E-Prix FP2.
That prospect changed when DS Penske’s Taylor Barnard activated attack mode and passed Mortara and de Vries in quick succession. De Vries attempted to respond, but Barnard held on to win, with the pair separated by six tenths at the finish.
Mahindra’s strategy was shaped by the need to secure third in the championship. De Vries backed up the field early to conserve energy and control the pace, a decision that frustrated Mortara. The Swiss driver also missed his first attack mode activation, forcing the team to swap positions so he could try again without surrendering places to rivals.
Neither Mahindra built enough of a cushion at the front. Mortara eventually dropped more than six seconds behind Barnard, while de Vries remained close enough to launch a final-lap challenge.
“I think we executed very well. We raced as a team, we executed as a team,” de Vries told Motorsport.com. “The primary priority was to finish third in the teams’ championship and that's what we delivered.”
He acknowledged that victory had been possible, but insisted the team had made the correct choices. Finishing third, only 17 points behind Porsche and ahead of customer team Andretti, represented an extraordinary recovery for a manufacturer that began the Gen3 era with the least competitive package on the grid.
Mortara was more openly disappointed, accepting that he could have supported de Vries better in the closing stages. “Potentially, I think that Nyck could have won that race with a better job from mine,” he said.
The missed win will remain a clear what-if. Yet Mahindra’s London weekend ultimately confirmed the scale of its recovery—and gave the team a result it had prioritised above all else.
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.