A clash with Andretti driver Jake Dennis was responsible for the damage that left Pascal Wehrlein last in Saturday’s Formula E race in Berlin.
After lining up second on the grid for his home round, Wehrlein immediately dropped in the lower reaches of the top 10 to conserve energy and mount a late attack.
However, his race unravelled on lap 19 when he suddenly slowed down with what appeared to be a puncture, forcing him to limp back to the pits.
With no safety car or full-course yellows in the second half of the race, the Porsche star was never able to make up that deficit and eventually finished the race 19th and last among the classified finishers.
The non-score was doubly frustrating for Wehrlein. Not only did Mahindra’s Edoardo Mortara snatch the championship lead with a second position, Wehrlein’s early strategy also proved to be the correct one as team-mate Nico Muller deployed a similar approach to claim his maiden Formula E win.
“I am [very disappointed]. Very unlucky. It’s not even a broken tyre, it was a broken valve of the rim,” Wehrlein told Motorsport.com.
“So, the contact with Dennis was a very small one, but a very unlucky angle of his front wing, which broke the valve and finished my race.
Pascal Wehrlein, Porsche Formula E Team
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
“We were driving side by side, I was on the inside, he was on the outside and basically his front wing touched my tyre and basically went into the valve.”
He added: “The problem was that I had to finish the whole lap, so it happened in the second last corner, and I just realised on the start-finish straight that I had a puncture.
“So, then I was driving the whole lap with a puncture, I was dropping to the last position.
“Then I boxed, but you are not allowed during the pit cruise to change the tyre, so you have to do it afterwards. So, the gap to the second last car was like 10 seconds and from there onwards my race was over.”
Porsche appeared to have a clear advantage over its closest rival Jaguar in Saturday’s opener. Mitch Evans could only manage sixth in the best of the I-Type 7s after failing to progress into duels in qualifying, while Antonio Felix da Costa dropped to 10th with overheating issues.
Asked whether Porsche would be able to employ a similar strategy in Sunday’s race, which will feature two fewer laps, no Pit Boost but a second Attack Mode, Wehrlein said: “I think so. I think tomorrow there will be even more energy saving. Tomorrow will probably be even more chaotic than today.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: motorsport.com
