Pascal Wehrlein had to settle for fifth place in the Monaco E-Prix as the TAG-Heuer Porsche driver was unable to capitalize on his earlier pole position and spectacular qualifying form.

With 10 points for P5 and an extra 3 for pole position however, the German maintains his lead in the FIA Formula E World Championship table with 102 points, seven ahead of Nick Cassidy (Jaguar), who finished second today. The Monaco Increase driver, racing in front of his management team’s headquarters, got away to a clean start and led for the first two laps, but then slipped down to P5 when he activated his first two-minute attack mode. And that remained Pascal’s position until the end of the rather processional 29+2 lap race, which was marked by three Safety-Car periods for incidents around the narrow and twisty Monaco layout. As the top 10 continued to lap in virtually single file throughout the race, the Jaguar duo of Mitch Evans and Cassidy took over at the front on lap 11 until the chequered flag, while Wehrlein had his work cut out trying to hold off an aggressive Max Guenther (Maserati) and Oliver Rowland (Nissan).

Not even in Pascal’s second six-minute attack mode was he able to make much headway against the DS Penske duo of Stoffel Vandoorne and Jean-Eric Vergne ahead of him in P3 and P4, and in the end he had to settle for fifth.

“It was a strange race,” declared Pascal. “I think we did everything right in the beginning but leading the race for the first couple of laps we were already a bit down on energy and then taking the attack mode we know that you lose quite a lot of time, and I lost three positions. It just felt like a strange race afterwards, because the other teams were playing quite well together, opening up gaps for each other and blocking the roads side by side. It was just a shame that we were falling behind two Jaguars and two DS Penskes that were together. I’m still in the lead of the championship by seven points, and obviously that’s positive about this weekend. I’m also qualifying well but on the other hand I think that with a bit of different circumstances, we could have won today.”

Four more double-header race weekends remain until the end of this year’s hard-fought championship, with the next encounter in two weeks’ time in Berlin (Germany).