"No pace, no grip, wrong strategy" - Wehrlein loses Formula E title chance after disastrous Berlin race

After a points-less Sunday race, Pascal Wehrlein is no longer Formula E World Champion. In 15th place, the German lost too many points to fourth-placed Oliver Rowland to postpone the titel decision until London. After dominating qualifying, his title hopes collapsed as the race progressed. There were several reasons for this, as the drivers explained after the race.

Wehrlein led much of the first half of the race and was seen as the man to beat. In the end, he only crossed the finish line in 16th place. However, the reason was not an accident, but pure pace. Wehrlein was in an energy deficit, and Porsche also had major tyre problems, which the other teams did not have.

Wehrlein disappointed with team & car

In an interview with e-Formula.news, Wehrlein described his problems as follows: "We simply had no pace in the car, no grip and a wrong first attack mode - with only two minutes instead of four, like the cars around me." The now former world champion came down hard on himself and the team: "That's no excuse that we flew so far back. There is clearly something else that we need to understand."

Wehrlein already experienced a similar race in Shanghai, where he also dropped a long way back after driving in the leading group for a long time. The tyres were probably the main problem: "It feels like the car is killing the tyres, which makes us inefficient and we simply have no pace." In Berlin, the surface was extremely rough - rougher than the surfaces at the other Formula E venues, which further encouraged the effect of tyre degradation.

Wehrlein's Porsche car showed just how little pace it really had when he was unable to get past Sergio Sette Camara without extra power for several laps despite using Attack Mode. A fact that puzzled the Porsche driver: "That's the weird thing. Even with Attack Mode, we couldn't get past the cars without Attack Mode."

On Saturday, he celebrated second place, but in much wetter conditions.

Felix da Costa criticises Porsche strategy

For the first quarter of the race, both Porsches and both Kiro drove away at the front, repeatedly swapping positions and slipstreams. For Antonio Felix da Costa, the approach in the first part of the race was simply too aggressive: "We were far too fast at the beginning and gave the drivers behind the chance to drive defensively and save energy", he explains to e-Formula.news. The evidence for his statement: none of the three drivers on the podium started better than 16th place, which confirms the Portuguese driver's assumption.

Antonio Felix da Costa dragged himself up to ninth place with difficulty, benefited from Nico Müller's penalty and ultimately finished eighth. From his point of view, it was a weekend to forget with many setbacks - although the pace was actually there for long stretches.

The drivers' world championship is lost for Porsche, and the Germans have also lost important points in the teams' standings, some of which they had won the day before. Porsche is travelling to London with the clear objective of winning the manufacturers' and teams' standings. They have a lead over Nissan in both tables - 23 points in the teams' championship and seven points in the battle for the manufacturers' title. The final two Formula E races will take place on 26 and 27 July in the English capital London.