WEHRLEIN BACK ON TOP OF POINTS TABLE AFTER P5 FINISH IN TOKYO

TAG-Heuer Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein made the best of a complicated fifth round of the FIA Formula E championship race in the inaugural race in Tokyo around the waterfront street circuit to score a hard-fought P5 finish.

With this result the Monaco Increase contracted driver scored 10 points and now heads to Italy for the first-ever double-header event on the Misano World Circuit in two weeks’ time with 63 points at the top of the table, two ahead of previous leader Nick Cassidy (Jaguar).

The German-Mauritian driver was never able to get in amongst the battle for the lead in the 35-lap encounter as Maximilian Guenther (Maserati) made it five different winners in five races of this increasingly competitive season.

Starting P7 on the grid after Saturday morning Qualifying, the 29-year-old Porsche driver remained boxed in during the early laps around the tight 2.585 km circuit that offered little in the way of passing opportunities, and could not make significant gains during his first six-minute Attack Mode power boost on lap 8, only rejoining the battle in fifth.

The rest of Pascal’s race was then compromised when he suffered front wing damage on lap 17 while trying but failing to pass Dennis (Andretti) which dropped him down to P6 again, but after a safety-car period he was able to emerge from a battle in the final stages with Dennis and Nato and retake a vital fifth place from Mortara (Mahindra) on the final lap.

“I finished the race in P5,” declared Pascal afterwards, “I think there was more possible but it was quite an intense race with a lot of contacts and I was lucky to finish the race in the end. Overall it was good points, I think our qualifying compromised a bit the day, but nevertheless again we showed good pace.”