Porsche disappointed with Formula E result in Mexico: "Seems like a different strategy would have worked"

Porsche scored points with both cars at the second Formula E race of the 2025/26 season in Mexico City, but the German team's drivers are not satisfied with the result. The reason: the race strategy of the Stuttgart-based sports car manufacturer's works team did not work out as expected.

For Pascal Wehrlein, who usually performs well in Mexico, things seemed to start well again this race weekend: the German finished second in the first free practice session and even first in the second free practice session. Things also got off to a good start for Nico Müller, the driver on the other side of the Porsche garage, with 6th and 4th place in practice.

However, the shock came in qualifying: Wehrlein did not make it into the duels and had to start the race from 11th position. Having already taken pole position four times on the race track, this was unexpected. "The starting position was my mistake", Pascal Wehrlein told e-Formula.news and Motorsport aktuell after the race. "I had a lock up on the first flying lap. And on the second lap, the tyres were no longer there."

Wehrlein: "It was damage limitation today"

Wehrlein was the first driver in the race to drive the attack mode loop. "It was damage limitation today after qualifying in 11th place", Wehrlein continued. It was a strategy that initially put him in the lead with the extra power, but after the activation time had expired, this left him vulnerable. This was followed by a collaboration with Porsche team-mate Nico Müller, who also drove at the front of the field and was able to shield Wehrlein for some time.

The two Porsches felt safe, Müller said after the race: "My feeling was that we actually had everything under control up front. I had a very, very good feeling for 24 of the 38 laps. We were always between first and third place, we were efficient, the car felt very good and I was pretty sure that we would not only have a say in the race, but that the road to victory would lead past us."

However, this changed abruptly after the safety car was deployed to recover Nyck de Vries' broken-down car. The Mahindra driver had come to a halt in the run-off zone of turn 1 after a technical problem.

Müller explained: "After the safety car, nothing worked anymore. Suddenly I lost all grip and was just sliding around. When you're sliding, you're no longer efficient and can't use your attack mode the way you need to. But also in terms of strategy, we had all the game balls in our hands. I was in the lead and hadn't used attack mode yet. Everything was actually going perfectly until everything suddenly fell apart. We have to understand what happened, because we've never had it this extreme before."

Wehrlein: "We chose an aggressive strategy"

The fact that the race did not go as predicted was also reflected by team-mate Pascal Wehrlein after the race: "If the race had been as we had thought it would have been super good for sure. In the end, it was much easier to overtake and make up places. We chose an aggressive strategy that put us in front. On the other hand, we can see that Cassidy and Rowland, for example, chose a different strategy that we didn't actually think would work here. We thought that, as in the past, it would be much more difficult to overtake."

"But the track modificatoins have probably changed that significantly," he speculates. Nevertheless, Wehrlein also sees the positive aspects of the situation: "These are lessons for the future. The positive thing is that we were really strong again this weekend, especially on one lap."

In the end, Wehrlein finished the race in 6th place and Müller in 9th. Both drivers were able to pick up important points, but Wehrlein is not entirely satisfied with the result: "When someone wins the race who starts behind you, it is always annoying.

The next chance for more points and perhaps even victory for the Porsche drivers in Miami is on 31 January. That's when the third round of the 2025/26 season takes place at the Miami International Autodrome around the Hard Rock Stadium.