Wehrlein takes “ghost” win ans 2nd place
Monaco, June 21 – MIM driver Pascal Wehrlein clearly was the man to beat in the Puebla, Mexico, e-prix weekend. Yet, his brilliant Saturday win from pole was cancelled shortly after the Porsche driver had crossed the finish line in P1. Wehrlein had managed to pull away from the field despite caution periods, showing a pace nobody else could match, but it was all in vain as the Stewards found the team guilty of not providing correct information over the tire sets they had used. In short, Porsche communicated twice the code numbers of the same set instead of indicating a different code each for qualifying and race. It was an ‘administrative error’ (as the Team put it) that in Formula E gives no real performance advantage: moreover, the Race Direction should have been aware, at least 10 minutes prior to the start of the rac,e that the codes were missing; yet, Wehrlein was given permission to race. Interestingly, the same inconvenience happened also to Andre Lotterer’s other Porsche car and to both Nissans. Undeterred by the disappointment, Pascal fought back on Sunday to gain second place on the starting grid. From there, he let Edo Mortara through at the start, but later managed to come ahead of poleman Rowland. The 26 year old German-Mauritian driver put a lot a pressure on Mortara, but a small mistake at Turn 7 meant that he had to be content with second. “After victory was taken away from us, this is a good result”, Wehrlein commented during the podium ceremony: but he was subsequently penalized by adding 5 seconds to his final race time – which demoted him to fourth – for “improper use of the fan boost” extra power. Porsche, in the meantime, has appealed the decision of the Stewards in Saturday’s race. If Pascal had been given all the points he gained on track this weekend, he would be leading the series by now…