Monaco Increase Management driver Pascal Wehrlein came back to victory in Round 10 of the FIA ABB Formula E championship in an epic race that highlighted his driving skill and finesse. The result marked Wehrlein’s best performance since the Diriyah double header last January and made Pascal the most winning driver of the zero-emission series so far this season. The MIM driver now has three wins to his credit this year over a total of four in his Formula E career. To top off the result, Wehrlein and his TAG Porsche team scored their best qualifying result of the season with a third spot on the grid that helped the German-Mauritian driver in his battle for positions while managing his energy to the last Kilowatt through the 36-lap event. After the first round of the Indonesian weekend, Wehrlein is now only two points shy of Nick Cassidy in the overall points standings and determined to fight back for the lead.
After clearing his group and quarter finals, Wehrlein made it to the semifinals in qualifying, knowing that Porsche’s strongest asset was once again in race pace. His start was brilliant, coming ahead of Jake Dennis and challenging poleman Max Günther into Turn 1. Race 1 in Jakarta featured an unusual 8-minute ‘Attack mode’, and the team chose to split it into a two and six minutes stint respectively. Wehrlein had already taken the lead of the race as he drove through the Attack mode zone, briefly letting Günther’s by before re-taking the lead when the Maserati driver served his own attack mode period.
From then on, Wehrlein was always in command but the real challenge came from Jake Dennis in his Avalanche Andretti car. Dennis had a slight energy edge over Pascal and tried till the end to make it stick, to which the MIM driver responded with one of his best performances ever in terms of solid driving and energy saving. The most dramatic moment came on Lap 24 as Dennis tried to pass the #94 Porsche at the end of the main straight, but Wehrlein was able to resist on the inside and in the following laps he made sure to have the best line and momentum out of the last corner, not allowing Dennis to get close enough to try a passing manoeuvre. The residual energy dial showed a clear 0.0% as MIM’s Wehrlein took the chequered flag in P1!
“It was an awesome race – Wehrlein said – and already our qualifying was much better than in the previous events. Thanks a lot to the team for their hard work, the car was awesome today and I was leading through most of the race, but it was not so easy with energy managing for me. I knew that the guys behind had a little bit more but I was able to defend well. The team really deserves this result. In the last couple of races we were not where we wanted to be and also, qualifying was the biggest issue for us, but today we managed out best qualifying of the season with P3. It has been a big turnaround for us in the last couple of weeks, it’s still a long way to go but we’re looking forward to tomorrow’s race!”.
