MIM-contracted Pascal Wehrlein (TAG Heuer Porsche) will start this afternoon’s Round 3 of the FIA Formula E World Championship in Saudi Arabia from the front row of the grid after another excellent run of Qualifying form in the final duels at Jeddah.

After finishing P6 and P9 in the two Free Practice sessions, Pascal made a massive leap forward in Qualifying to take third place in Group B. The 2024 world champion then saw off Jake Hughes (Maserati) in the Quarters and Oliver Rowland (Nissan) by a fraction in the Semis before lining up against Max Guenther in an all-German final.
Despite leading through the first sector, Pascal was edged out by the DS Penske driver at the flag after losing three-tenths of a second in the final sector of the one-lap dash for pole.

“It was a very good qualifying considering we were more than half a second off in free practice,” declared Pascal. “But we found an issue on the car and now, it just felt a lot better, and I was building references step-by-step throughout qualifying. It was a bit of a shame on my last lap, because I just lost a bit at the rear in the last sector and couldn’t match the lap before. Otherwise I’m super-happy because it’s the first row again. It’s been a good turnaround, and I’m very happy with the team because we were scratching our heads a bit after free practice. As for the race, the attack mode is already a big enough strategy tool, and now we have the pit boost as well, so there’s a lot you can do right and even more wrong. So, hopefully, we are on the good end.”

Today’s first race in this weekend’s double-header Jeddah E-Prix round gets underway in a couple of hours’ time, shortly after 18:00 CET.

Photos: Courtesy of Porsche