Pascal Wehrlein will have a new engineer for the forthcoming Formula E season, the first significant change in his direct team for two seasons.
The 2024 champions former engineer Fabrice Roussel will move on to what FEN believes to be a senior engineering role with a 2025 race winning manufacturer in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Roussel, who also previously worked at DS Techeetah, Rebellion Racing and Andretti,and began engineering Wehrlein in 2024, is expected to take up his new role towards the end of the present year.
FEN can reveal that replacing Roussel is Robert Sattler, who will work directly with Wehrlein. Brazilian Sattler began his professional career in his homeland before moving to Europe in 2005 working in F3 and DTM.
Following relatively junior role Sattler moved on to be Marco Wittmann’s performance engineer, winning the teams championship in 2014 as a freelancer, while majoring on a role at Force India F1 mostly as a performance and simulator engineer.
Sattler then move briefly to Williams but soon re-emerged in DTM where he engineered Gary Paffett and Paul di Resta, taking the 2018 title with Paffett.
His first Formula E involvement came in 2020 after a time working in the Roborace project. He engineered Tom Blomqvist at NIO and then Nick Cassidy at Envision Racing before he moved to Aston Martin F1 for a spell in 2023.
He joined Porsche earlier this year and is one of several new faces at Weissach. Earlier this year Formula E Notebook reported that Envision engineer Maxime Menneglier was also switching to the reigning teams and manufacturers champions. He is believed to be starting his role in January.
Speaking to FEN earlier this month Director of Factory for Motorsport Formula E, Florian Modlinger, said then that the full formation of the engineering structure was “still in the decision making process. This means you will see it in Valencia; we are not finally ready. We have everything together but in Valencia you will see there. There will be changes.”
Why settled Wehrlein is set do ‘an Evans’
Pascal Wehrlein will begin his sixth season with Porsche Formula E team this December and it already feels as if he is only halfway through his tenure with the reigning teams and manufacturers champions.
Wehrlein came to Porsche in 2020 after a slightly messy extrication from Mahindra where he completed almost two seasons with the Indian manufacturer.
That was soon forgotten as Wehrlein claimed a first podium in only his fourth race in Rome, before he crossed the line to take what appeared to be his first victory at Puebla a few races later.
That was scratched from his and Porsches’s grasp in controversial circumstances after an administration error with his tyre allocation saw him disqualified.
His second season was by far his and Porsches least competitive season with just a debut win at Mexico City failing to trigger the expected title push and the team falling away badly to a poor seventh in the teams’ title at seasons end.
But the advent of Gen3 saw Wehrlein really come on strong with a double win in Diriyah, another victory in London and fourth place in the standings.
His title season in 2024 saw three more victories, while the last campaign proffered one more win (at Homestead) and a third placed in the points. From a consistency point of view Wehrlein, along with Cassidy, Evans and Rowland has been the among the benchmark performers for the last three seasons.
His relationship with Porsche is deep-rooted and his clinical and defined operative prowess has synchronised almost perfectly with that of the Porsche management and engineers. While a lot of that comes through performance there is also a clear philosophy of working that functions well.
He is believed to have a contract that covers off this season and next at the very least, with all probability that he will complete the second Gen4 season too with Porsche in 2027-28.
With Nico Mueller coming in alongside him and being a naturally calmer presence than da Costa, Wehrlein appears to have a canvas now where he can add to his 2024 title and execute more teams and manufacturers crowns for Porsche.
A new engineering team may take a couple of races to bed in but with the experienced Sattler in his ear, that should all be a routine affair for Wehrlein who will go for his second Formula E title in 2026.
