Despite losing his championship lead, Pascal Wehrlein was still able to take home vital points with a fourth place finish in round 10 of the FIA Formula E World Championship at the Berlin Templehof airfield circuit as his TAG-Heuer team-mate Antonio Felix Da Costa gave Porsche their first home race victory.

It was a race of two halves for Monaco Increase Management’s German driver, who was also racing in front of his home crowd, as well as his friends and family. Pascal’s opening lap was a particularly impressive one as he immediately dived into second place from seventh on the grid, but before the lap was over he had been pushed into the wall by Norman Nato (Andretti). Luckily the damage was superficial and Pascal was always able to stay inside the top 3 positions until the half-way point, which included a couple of spells in the lead as the battle for the front involving the two Porsches and the two Jaguars began to get a bit heated.

Pascal was then squeezed into the wall a second time but on this occasion he had to drop back to P6 and outside the leading group. After a further three-lap parade behind the Safety-Car, Wehrlein’s final ten laps were taken up by a bruising battle with Andretti’s Jake Dennis, in which the two bashed fairings on more than one occasion as last year’s champion tried to force his way into fifth place. Wehrlein kept his nerve however and took over P4 during the three added laps when Mitch Evans (Jaguar) locked up with two to go.

“It was a chaotic race with a lot of contacts and my car was quite damaged, “ said Pascal. “But we fought hard today, P4 is still good points and now I’m looking forward to the last three races.”

The result means that Pascal heads for the final part of the championship in second place in the standings on 124 points, 16 behind the new leader Nick Cassidy (Jaguar). All is not lost however, as his massively-improved qualifying form and the in-race determination he showed in these two Berlin races bode well for the three remaining rounds.