Reigning world champion Pascal Wehrlein kicked off his 2025 campaign in the best possible way with a fantastic performance throughout Free Practice and Qualifying to clinch pole position for the opening round of the season at the São Paulo Sambadrome in Brazil.

The MIM-contracted German, who was competitive right from the early roll-out yesterday in FP1 with the new GEN3 Evo electric cars, blitzed his way through from the group stage into the quarterfinals, where the TAG Heuer Porsche factory driver first disposed of Norman Nato (Nissan) and then Max Guenther (DS Penske) by almost half-a-second in the semis, before facing Oliver Rowland (Nissan) in the first final Duel of the year.

It was a terrific battle over one lap, but in the end, Pascal edged Rowland out over the line to make it back-to-back Brazilian poles, having achieved the same qualifying result just a few months back in Season 10.

“It was all or nothing, really,” said Pascal on being presented with the Julius Baer Pole Position trophy. “I almost messed it up in turn 1 when I went a bit wide and lost a bit of time there, but the other corners were all pretty good. I think the race is going to be quite difficult on energy, also the temperature is super-hot so it will be challenging for the car and for us. I’m looking forward to the race for sure, it will be peloton-style initially and then let’s see how it turns out with the attack mode, four-wheel drive and so on because it’s one thing in qualifying and then the race strategy is completely different. The whole team has done an incredible job, because the car is quite different compared to last year and with the tyres and so on a lot of things have changed, but it feels like we got on top of everything.”

The opening round of the season at the Sambadrome gets underway in a couple of hours’ time.

Photos courtesy of ©Porsche AG