MIM-contracted driver Pascal Wehrlein drove well to keep out of trouble in the first Berlin E-Prix encounter of the weekend at the Templehof airfield circuit, but ultimately missed out on a possible win – or even a podium – in what was a chaotic, hard-fought race.

The TAG-Heuer Porsche man led on numerous occasions throughout the 40-lap race, which was twice interrupted for lengthy periods by Full Course Yellows and Safety Car periods, but such was the hectic battle for the lead – with an incredible number of overtakes throughout and cars braking four abreast into the tight hairpin bends on numerous occasions – that the final laps were always going to be a bit of a lottery.

The German began the final part of the race in second place after the safety-car peeled off on lap 34, but got embroiled in a series of close-quarter battles with his rivals, including eventual winner Nick Cassidy (Jaguar), Jean-Eric Vergne (DS Penske), Oliver Rowland (Nissan), Mitch Evans (Jaguar), who all finished ahead of him.
With Cassidy picking up a full haul of points for win and fastest lap, Pascal now finds himself lying second behind the Kiwi in the standings, and he was left ruing what could have been a decent finish after what was a tough start to the weekend on Friday. Pascal was in fact left high-and-dry during the mandatory systems check opening laps of Free Practice 1 when a power surge brought his Porsche powertrain to a halt and he had to wait until FP2 on Saturday morning before he could put in his first laps of the weekend.

He showed great character throughout the day however, first qualifying in sixth and making it through to the Duels for a P6 start, then during the race his pace on occasions bodes well for the second encounter tomorrow afternoon.

“It was an eventful race, we moved up one position to P5,” declared Pascal. “At times it looked a bit better and we were more at the front, but we need to check now what happened, because especially the Jaguars were quite fast in the race. I felt like we didn’t have the pace to follow them, and I think we also could have maximized the result a bit. In these kind of races there’s always a lot of contacts between the cars, and it’s just about positioning the car right, sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re not. So it is what it is with P5 and we try harder tomorrow.”