Pascal Wehrlein (TAG-Heuer Porsche) took home a fourth place after a fast and furious fourth round of the FIA Formula E Championship in São Paulo after being denied of a certain podium finish by Oliver Rowland (Nissan) right at the final corner.
The MIM-contracted driver started from pole position for the 31-lap race, but was unable to make the best early use of his two time-attack modes and was stuck behind his teammate Antonio Felix Da Costa as the battles raged at the front of the field and he entered the final part of the race after a Safety Car period in third.
Lap after lap the German was all over the leading duo Sam Bird (McLaren) and Mitch Evans (Jaguar), but such was the pace at the front that he could not find a decent passing opportunity despite being up on energy against his rivals.
Things became a bit more complicated towards the end when a charging Jake Dennis (Andretti) cheekily overtook him for third on lap 29, but on the final corner of the last lap of the three extra added he got his nose past Dennis. Unfortunately both drivers were then passed on the inside by Rowland who got the better drive out of the turn.
“I finished the race in P4 but I’m obviously a bit disappointed because we had a good shot at the win,” declared Pascal, “it’s just that certain times it didn’t go our way with the attack modes and there was a bit of confusion when Antonio and myself were driving together for quite a long time. I also had a big power cut out of the last corner which cost me the position in the end and then another incident with Jake in the last lap. So it was just a difficult race, a very different type of race, which we knew before, where it was very easy to overtake and you really want to be in the slipstream but I feel like we didn’t optimize the race. That’s why on the one side I’m disappointed but on the other side having a pole position and a P4 is good when we are disappointed about those results.”
The really positive note was that with championship leader Nick Cassidy (Jaguar) crashing out and scoring no points, Wehrlein took home 15 (12 for fourth and 3 for pole), closing down the gap at the top to 4.
The globe-trotting FIA Formula E Championship now heads to Japan for Round 5 in Tokyo in two weeks’ time.
