With wet weather making an appearance in Miami and no wet track-time so far, the race got underway behind the Safety Car.
The pack formed up after five laps under caution for a standing start, with the leaders scrabbling through Turn 1.
Mueller led away with Drugovich immediately jumping for the first of his two 50kW, all wheel driver Attack Mode boosts and back into P1 just a few corners later in tricky, damp conditions.
Mueller and de Vries followed suit with Attack a lap later and Eriksson and Wehrlein on Lap 8. The former pair hit the front on Lap 9 with their Attack Mode spells overlapping Drugovich’s.
The lead changed hands again on Lap 11, with Andretti’s Brazilian driver slicing by de Vries’ Mahindra for P2 with Porsche’s Nico Mueller still out-front. A couple of laps later and Drugovich was P1, moving by Mueller in Sector 1.
Conditions were super tough and slick with grip hard to come by. Da Costa was next of the leaders to jump for Attack – and quickly set about moving his Jaguar into the top three on Lap 17 in all-wheel driver.
Second became first out of the final turn for the Portuguese with a minute of his first Attack Mode remaining.
Evans followed his teammate’s lead and took his first dose of Attack Mode to clamber into third from the back end of the top 10.
At the hairpin, Mueller moved back into the lead of the race and held track position through Turn 1 of the next lap to keep da Costa at bay as the Portuguese battled his teammate for second.
Evans managed to sweep around the outside of Turn 1 on lap 26 to take P2 and set about Mueller.
That wouldn’t last, though as Drugovich clipped and spun da Costa as the rain began to fall more heavily – tumbling the Portuguese down to sixth and Drugovich into the pits for repairs and entirely out of contention.
At the end of Lap 27, Evans then sold Mueller the dummy to steal the race lead through the final couple of corners – some move – with de Vries now sitting third.
Evans had pulled a 1.5 second lead come lap 30 over Mueller and De Vries. The whole pack were yet to take their second Attack Mode activation, though, so all was liable to change.
Wehrlein was the first of the top 10 to leap through the activation loop for his second Attack. Four minutes of that 50kW, all-wheel drive surge. Mueller countered on lap 34 to cover him off as Wehrlein took P3 with Mueller moving into second.
The top 10: P1: Evans, P2: Mueller, P3: Wehrlein, P4: Eriksson, P5: De Vries, P6: Mortara, P7: Buemi, P8: Da Costa, P9: Marti and P10: Dennis.
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