Pascal Wehrlein won the first free practice session of Formula E in Berlin. However, the Porsche driver will not remember the session for that: Shortly before time ran out, he pushed his team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa and sent him into the wall. As a result of the accident, practice was stopped early.

The first session of the Berlin weekend on Friday afternoon began with the obligatory full-course yellow practice. It had been raining in Tempelhof around two hours before the practice session, but the track had dried out again in the meantime. The track record from the previous year (1:01.741 minutes) was already beaten in the first few minutes - partly due to the faster Gen3 Evo car and partly due to the minimally adapted and smoother track configuration.

After the first ten minutes, Jean-Eric Vergne led the field and already hit the one-minute mark. Then world championship leader Oliver Rowland, who could become world champion as early as Saturday, took the lead. Some teams, including Porsche, practised the Pit Boost, which will be used again in Saturday's race. For a long time, not much happened on the track until Taylor Barnard took first place after 18 minutes with three pink sectors and a lead of almost half a second.

Cupra Kiro opened the second half of the session with good laps: Dan Ticktum sorted himself into second place just behind Barnard, followed by his team-mate David Beckmann. Formula E debutant Felipe Drugovich improved to fourth place, but suffered a setback right at the start of the weekend: Due to a gearbox change on his Mahindra, he has to move down 20 grid positions on Saturday.

Spectacular end to the session

The first 58-seconds lap times then appeared on the screen: Edo Mortara took the lead, followed by Pascal Wehrlein. In an interview with e-Formula.newss before the session, the German world champion had appeared to be in poor health and was struggling with his voice, but this obviously did not affect his pace.

Then things got weird: Antonio Felix da Costa overtook his team-mate Wehrlein in the last corner to finish his fast lap. However, Wehrlein then gave full power behind him on the start and finish straight to complete a 350-kW lap himself and drove into the back of the Portuguese! He pushed him, causing Felix da Costa to hit the wall and damage his right front. His Porsche came to a halt on the track, whereupon the race organisers stopped the session prematurely with red flags.

The incident that brought the end to FP1 😫@Hankook_Sport #BerlinEPrix pic.twitter.com/NzeIDmcVPY

- Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) July 11, 2025

"We have to talk to the drivers - that's obviously something we don't want to see at all", said Porsche team boss Florian-Modlinger shortly after the end of the session on TV World Signal. The 2nd free practice session in Berlin will take place on Saturday morning at 9am. The weather forecast favours rain for the entire race day - so it should be exciting on the track.

Results & lap times

Championship standings (drivers, teams & manufacturers)