There are plenty of mythical spectres in Mexico City, they even made a film around it.

But the one that threatened to reappear (from Sao Paulo) to haunt Nissan and Oliver Rowland in the first Formula E race of 2025 eventually got banished by an inspired piece of racing exorcism.

There was an element of gamble, an element of luck but also a big sprinkling of out and out racing brilliance about Rowland’s fourth E-Prix victory, which firmly knocked Porsche off its previously unassailable perch at Mexico City - where it had won on the series’ previous three visits.

Rowland’s rollercoaster of emotions on Saturday included a nasty flashback.

In the Sao Paulo opener a month earlier, Rowland was controlling the field and still had an extra attack mode at his disposal but saw that tactical advantage destroyed by a safety car for Jake Dennis’s stranded and ‘live’ Andretti Porsche.

In Mexico, Rowland was fourth and poised to attack Dennis and the factory Porsches of Pascal Wehrlein and Antonio Felix da Costa ahead when he took his final six minutes of attack mode at a point when his rivals had burned through all of theirs.

Then with Rowland just a few seconds into that attack mode, David Beckmann and Zane Maloney collided and race director Scot Elkins reached for the safety car activation button.

Rowland hollered incredulously into his radio:  "I can't believe it! Again.”

But sharp work by the excellent Mexican marshals meant Rowland still had just over a minute of the precious 350kW mode left when the race went green again.

And what the gods took with one hand (most of his six minutes), they gave with another: that safety car brought him right onto the tail of the three Porsches ahead.

Half a lap later Rowland was in the lead after pulling off three excellent and well-judged moves. Frankly he had to, because the clock on his attack mode was ticking down to zero, which was effectively an alarm call on whether he could beat the Porsches or not.

Yes, the Nissan had the performance advantage of the extra energy and all-wheel-drive but Rowland still had to get three moves done against a ticking clock - at a track where passing was significantly harder than it had been in Sao Paulo even with attack mode.

“I was confident I could maybe get one into Turn 1. It was Jake, and he can be quite aggressive, but I did it,” Rowland told The Race.

“I was thinking ‘what a waste of time with the safety car coming out’ and then went 'boom, the lights are off so let’s go’. I didn’t have time to plan it, it was all instinct.