CUPRA KIRO shows promise amid challenging Mexico City weekend

CUPRA KIRO experienced a challenging weekend at the 2025 Mexico City E-Prix as the FIA Formula E World Championship’s newest team resumed its debut season at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

The American outfit entered the second round of the 2024/25 campaign following a promising first performance in São Paulo and opened the event in Mexico by unveiling a bold new visual identity ahead of practice on Friday morning.

In FP1, drivers, Dan Ticktum and David Beckmann, established an initial baseline before implementing several changes to improve performance ahead of Saturday, although rain overnight and damp track conditions in FP2 meant that it was difficult to complete representative running.

With the track continuing to dry as the day progressed, CUPRA KIRO entered Qualifying with modest expectations, and in a highly competitive Group B, Dan started 15th while David secured an encouraging 12th.

By securing a clean getaway, the duo made good start to the race and while David held his grid position, Dan fought his way into 14th.

Unfortunately, contact late into the first lap forced Dan to pit with a puncture and demoted the Briton to 22nd, leaving David as CUPRA KIRO’s primary challenger for the majority of the race.

In only his fourth Formula E start, the German raced well and ran consistently inside the top 10 by taking advantage of his two Attack Modes but was unfortunately forced to retire following contact with fellow rookie, Zane Maloney, on lap 28 of 36.

David’s retirement caused a late Safety Car which allowed Dan to rejoin the rear of the field, and with the pack bunched up, the 24-year-old used his final Attack Mode to execute a late recovery in the closing laps, finishing 19th.

The FIA Formula E World Championship’s 11th season will resume on 14-15 February for the inaugural Jeddah E-Prix in Saudi Arabia – the first double-header event of 2025.

Alex Hui, Team Principal, CUPRA KIRO
“Overall, Mexico City has been a difficult weekend, but in the face of the challenges we had to navigate, there are some positives we can take. We were able to learn a great deal about how the new Hankook tyres perform in wet weather in FP2, David pieced together a very strong race with some good energy management and overtaking, and Dan and the team did an excellent job to adapt his strategy following the early puncture. While the weekend didn’t fall our way, we’ve gained a more broad understanding of our technical package, and I’m confident that will help us to be more consistent which will be vital as we start preparations for the first double-header of the season in Jeddah.”

Russell O’Hagan, Chief Operating Officer, CUPRA KIRO
“A challenging weekend here in Mexico City where changeable early conditions prevented us from finding a good car balance through practice and Qualifying. Despite this, we recovered quite well in the race and David ran inside the top 10 consistently before he was forced to retire after contact. With Dan, a puncture on the first lap left us with no option but to put him on an energy saving strategy. He got into a good energy position, but unfortunately, the Safety Car that we needed came at the worst possible time – while he was in Attack Mode. Overall, a great deal learned this weekend which we can take forward into Jeddah.”

Dan Ticktum, Driver, CUPRA KIRO
“This weekend didn’t live up to its full potential, and we know that we’re capable of achieving more. The biggest disappointment for me is the one lap pace – we don’t seem to be getting the car quite into right window at the moment, and that means we’re not qualifying well. In the race I was very unlucky, and I got hit on the first lap which there wasn’t much I could do about. We have some work to do ahead of the next race and we need to understand why we don’t seem to have the pace, but I’m looking forward to Jeddah.”

David Beckmann, Driver, CUPRA KIRO
“Overall, it has been a very up and down weekend. We struggled a lot in practice but managed to improve in Qualifying. We started from 12th, managed to have a good race and we were in the top 10 but then in the end, it got very difficult with the tyre degradation and I had contact with another driver which was small, but enough to bend my front-right suspension which meant that I had to retire. It was very unfortunate but up until then, it was a very good race. We had good pace, we were always either close to, or inside, the top 10 and we’ve made good progress. For Jeddah, we need to work on our Qualifying to start closer to the front, avoid the chaos in the midfield, and with that, we can have a cleaner race. I’m really looking forward to it – it’s a new track; a night race and I think it’ll be very exciting.”