Formula E in Jeddah: Pascal Wehrlein secures hard-fought victory

Porsche's Pascal Wehrlein secured the first victory and the fastest lap of the first race of the Jeddah "Double-Header". Despite problems at the start, Mortara finished the race in second position and Mitch Evans also managed to clinch the last podium place on the Jeddah podium.

Under the floodlights, the 20 Formula E drivers took to the grid on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit on Friday evening. With an outside temperature of 27 degrees Celsius, it was still pretty hot.

The German drivers Maximilian Günther and Pascal Wehrlein started from grid positions 2 and 3 after the Swiss Edoardo Mortara secured pole position in a thrilling qualifying session in the afternoon.

The first cars headed for the start with burnouts, that is when the first driver was already experiencing problems: The Mahindra of Nyck de Vries did not start thus the start had to be paused first to push de Vries' car off of the track. When the race was restarted, de Vries' team-mate also had to deal with difficulties: he had really bad wheel spin at the start, causing him to lose six places. Lola's Zane Maloney did not have a good start either: contact with Pepe Marti in the Cupra Kiro left his left front tyre askew, forcing Maloney to park his car. A full-course yellow was called to recover the Lola vehicle. The contact was subsequently noted by the race stewards, but it was decided not to impose a penalty.

At the end of the full-course yellow, Günther was at the front of the field, followed by Nato and Wehrlein. Barnard was in 4th place and pole man Mortara found himself in 5th place.

The two Germans Wehrlein and Günther were in a fighting mood: Wehrlein came closer and closer to his compatriot and defended hard. For his defence against Wehrlein, the DS Penske driver was given a warning for "Moving Under Braking".

Pit Boost and Attack Mode activations started

On lap 16, the first Pit Boost charges started, with Rowland's Nissan and Eriksson's Envision being the first at the charging stations in the pits. On the same lap, Günther was the first to drive through the Attack Mode loop. However, Formula E newcomer Eriksson had problems during the charge: he did not position the car correctly for the charge, causing the Envision driver to lose a lot of time. In addition, his car was still slightly over the required 60 per cent charge at the time. Eriksson was subsequently handed a drive-through penalty. Afterwards, half the field also followed their teams into the pits to charge the 10 per cent extra energy.

Pascal Wehrlein had managed to build up a massive lead during the race and was 7 seconds ahead of second-placed driver Dennis, who was fighting with Jaguar driver Felix da Costa, just a few laps before the end of the race. With his Attack Mode activation, Mortara was then able to fight his way forwards and shortly before the end of the race found himself in second place with the extra power from the Attack Mode and gradually reduced the 7-second gap to leader, but he could not quite get past Wehrlein. Pascal Wehlein was therefore able to call himself the winner of the first Jeddah E-Prix of the season and also the owner of the fastest lap. The German shared the podium with Mortara in second place and Evans in third, while Wehrlein's team-mate Müller finished the race in fourth place. The top 10 was completed by Felix da Costa in fifth place, followed by Cassidy, Buemi, Vergne, Dennis and Barnard. For Günther, who had managed to stay in front for a long time, it was only enough for 11th place in the end.

The action continues tomorrow with the third free practice session at 11:30 CET. We from e-Formula.news will be there again then,