Porsche misses out on the Formula E podium on Saturday race in Berlin: "Today, more would have been possible"

Although Porsche had three cars in the fight for the podium places with Antonio Felix da Costa, Jake Dennis and Pascal Wehrlein, the podium ceremony took place after the race without any Porsche participation. While the two works drivers were at least able to pick up some points, world champion Dennis came away empty-handed after a tyre failure. The result: Porsche loses the lead in the manufacturers' standings.

Starting the race from positions 6 and 8, both Porsche works drivers were in contention for victory throughout the race. By the end of the race, Felix da Costa and Wehrlein had completed ten leading laps between them - seven for the German and three for the Portuguese. Dennis was also involved in the battle for the top positions in the final third of the race, having worked his way up from 20th on the grid.

Then, however, many things went wrong for the German manufacturer's drivers: Dennis went straight out at turn 6 due to a puncture and retired from the race shortly afterwards. The victim was Felix da Costa, who lost touch with the drivers in front of him. Although he made up the deficit, he was no longer in a position to attack. In the end, he crossed the finish line in sixth place, 0.291 seconds behind his team-mate.

"I think today more would have been possible," said Pascal Wehrlein to e-Formula.news after the race. "Things looked good after the safety car, but we couldn't quite keep up with the pace on the final laps. Others saved more energy during the race, especially Cassidy. It was actually chaotic the whole race with contacts and touches. Fortunately, my front wing stayed on, although I had a lot of damage. I think we would have been fighting for the podium today. Both cars didn't make it and now we have to see what we can do better tomorrow."

Felix da Costa: "I thought I've been through hell and back"

"The best way to describe it is that at some point I thought I've been through hell and back," explained Antonio Felix da Costa at our microphone. "So much happened and it was still 25 laps to go. I think we did everything right, I touched noone, I kept it clean. When Dennis had the problem, he went wide and took me with him. That ultimately costed me the podium, maybe even more."

"I don't believe in bad luck, but the reality is that the last two races in a row I kept being collected by people going of," he continued. "Maybe I need to try and see this things coming, I don't know, but try and do better."

Dennis: "It was looking good for the podium"

"We were coming through very well, from the back to the front in a very quick period of the race," says Jake Dennis. "It was looking good for the podium and then unfortunately we had some contact which gave me a puncture." However, the problem occurred well before the corner where he was travelling straight ahead. "I think people got aware that I got a puncture maybe T6, but the contact was in T1."

What some spectators may have thought when watching the TV pictures, as Felix da Costa and Wehrlein often drove side by side through the corners: Are the Porsche drivers fighting too much and too hard with each other?

"Antonio and I have always fought fairly with each other," says Wehrlein, describing the interaction with his team-mate. "In this type of race, you have to give the drivers a free hand, because otherwise you can lose four positions in one corner. We touched each other once, which was unfortunate, but we also entered the corner four-wide. So you can't expect much else. Otherwise, it worked well every time when we went next to each other through the corner."

Internal team battles "very difficult to manage"

"I don't think I ever fought Pascal," says Felix da Costa. "To be honest, I'm always super carefull around him, and that's actually something very hard to manage. Especially in a race like this, that everybody is going three, four wide. To be around the team mate you have to be extra careful."

"That is something that adds to the whole thing," he continues. "But it is what it is, we're both there at the front and we need to deal with it."

The Porsche drivers will have the opportunity to do better tomorrow, Sunday: The second round of the double header will take place at Tempelhof Airport.