Formula E: Porsche Power achieves historic double victory

In Formula E, Porsche fans needed a very long breath – but now it seems the knot has finally untied: Pascal Wehrlein finally celebrated his first victory in Formula E – in his 35th race – and the 29th for Porsche. And with teammate Andre Lotterer, both Porsches achieved a double victory. Accordingly, the jubilation was exuberant at Zuffenhausen. Interesting useless knowledge: The last Formula victory of a Porsche works team was celebrated by the American Dan Gurney almost exactly 60 years ago: He won in 1962 in Formula 1 on a Porsche 804.

The pressure at Porsche had recently increased significantly: In the third season, there is no more puppy protection, and in Formula E the winners change almost from race to race – it's bad when you're never there. This also bothered the well-coordinated duo Lotterer/Wehrlein, who received a new motorsport director in Thomas Laudenbach. Additionally, Pascal Zurlinden, the overall project manager, left, and Florian Modlinger, who knows Formula E from his years of work at Abt Sportsline, joined. Now the breakthrough came, and it came with a double victory. Wehrlein had often been good in Mexico but was disqualified just there last year, which is why he said:

“This victory is a great satisfaction after everything I've experienced in Mexico. I have now avenged myself for that. It feels great to have secured the first victory for the team. The car was fantastic, and Andre did a great job. Today was our day."

Especially since Wehrlein was able to start the race from pole position after the wild K.O. qualifying. Behind him started Edoardo Mortara, who had a better start on his Venturi. But he wasn’t fast enough to overtake Wehrlein at the first corner, who "closed the door" with his Porsche. In third place followed Lotterer ahead of the DS-Techeetah duo Jean-Eric Vergne and Antonio Felix da Costa.

At times, it seemed like another victory for Venturi

Mortara didn’t let Wehrlein shake him off and took the lead on the start/finish straight. He was then even able to distance himself from Wehrlein. His teammate Lotterer faced the same fate: Vergne and Felix da Costa passed him, putting DS Techeetah in positions three and four. Vergne used his third place for an attack on Wehrlein, moving up to rank two. Wehrlein then decided to steer towards the attack mode zone, which caught the closely following Felix da Costa off guard: He collided with Wehrlein, damaging his front wing and falling noticeably back. As a result, the trio of Mortara, Vergne, and Wehrlein remained in the lead, followed by Lotterer in the second Porsche and Robin Frijns in the Envision. But the fantastic start cost the leaders a lot of energy: Vergne soon had to reduce his pace, allowing Wehrlein, Lotterer, and Frijns to pass him and take up the chase of leader Mortara, who also became slightly slower – ultimately too slow.

Wehrlein strikes back: On the start/finish straight – with a similar maneuver to Mortara

About twelve minutes before the end of the race, Wehrlein hit the leader with his own weapons and passed Mortara on the start/finish straight with a similar maneuver. Mortara continued to lose ground, and shortly after, Lotterer also overtook him. It became clear that Mortara couldn't maintain his speed: After the two Porsches, the two DS-Techeetah drivers Vergne and da Costa overtook him, placing their cars in third and fourth positions. Mortara ended up fifth.

Defending champion Nyck de Vries on Mercedes couldn’t compete for the victory this time but put his Mercedes "unobtrusively" in sixth place. His teammate Stoffel Vandoorne made it to eleventh place, missing out on points this time. Frijns ended up seventh ahead of the two Nissan e.dams with Buemi and Max Guenther, while Jake Dennis secured points for Andretti in tenth position. Things didn’t go well for Jaguar either, where they had to settle for fifteenth and ninth places.

In the drivers' standings, Wehrlein moved up to third place with 30 points. Fifth place was enough for Mortara to maintain the lead with 43 points – ahead of Nyck de Vries who now has 41 points. In the team standings, Rokit Venturi is narrowly ahead of the Mercedes factory team with 68 points compared to 66 points. Porsche is now in third place with 60 points, significantly ahead of DS Techeetah with 39 points. The next race will take place in Rome on April 9 and 10, 2022.

What does that mean?

Porsche has finally secured its long-awaited first victory and even achieved a double win. However, that was not the only pairing: the two DS Techeetah cars followed in third and fourth place, and the two Nissans finished in eighth and ninth place. In between, Venturi, Mercedes, and Envision crossed the finish line. While Porsche and DS Techeetah experienced significant gains – and Nissan also managed to improve, the other teams had rather mixed results this time. Mercedes, along with customer team Venturi, remains strong but not as consistently as in recent races.