There were so many impressive performances at the Madrid EPrix, perhaps none more so than Pascal Wehrlein’s. The 2024 champion finished third in a car that had more battle scars than Novak Djokovic’s shoulder tendons.
A chunk of his rear floor missing, a cut in his right rear Hankook that looked like it had been prepped by Gordon Ramsey and a rear wing that was just about hanging on, meant that by rights Wehrlein should have been nowhere near third place as the final chicane on the final lap approached. Yet he was.
After fighting back from a crippling front-powertrain issue in his quarter final duel, Wehrlein lined up sixth on the grid after his Porsche team pulled out all the stops to get the tricky FPK replacement fitted.
“You could see in the dual stage that the car did not do what Pascal wanted already in turn one,” said Modlinger.
“Afterwards we found out there was a FPK issue which needs to be investigated now for the root cause.”
Wehrlein’s race started awesomely as he moved up to second by the start of the third lap and he was in position to build what in his mind would be a strong claim to a second win in three races.
Then along came N.de Vries in a Mahindra that appeared to braking for a different corner to the one in which it was actually approaching. Afterwards de Vries owned the error and said he’d been juggling with an issue.
“With the contact he had with me, my car was pretty damaged,” Wehrlein told FEN after the incident, which de Vries received a five-second time penalty.
“First of all, I thought I cannot continue,” added Wehrlein. “Then I thought, okay, my car behaves completely differently now. I have a lot of oversteer in the car and just no rear grip anymore, which makes sense with what happened to my rear wing.
“I think the contact was avoidable. Because it never looks good if you hit someone in the rear, and especially not if it happens multiple times within a couple of races.”
At that stage Wehrlein could not see the significance of the damage but it became clearer as he grappled with the balance difference in the car that it might be a long afternoon ahead.
“I thought it would be hard to finish in the points,” he said. “But we had a really good strategy and I could benefit from that and just kind of follow the cars in front of me. At one point towards the end, when everything was shaping up for the win, basically, I just didn’t have the pace to follow.”
He kept in contention with da Costa, following him in to the pits on lap 11, even though it was a late-ish call to do so. After that he adapted brilliantly to his new circumstances and then came the dramatic last corner.
“I’d accepted P4, but I knew there might be a situation where I can benefit too,” said Wehrlein. “So, it’s still worth to stay close to the cars in front and put myself in a position where I can maybe benefit. And that’s exactly happened in the last chicane and we took the podium.
“I tried to anticipate because, obviously, I saw already what happened in the braking zone. So, I tried to anticipate that. I mean, we all have a lot of experience, so it was nothing magical.”
Wehrlein was doing himself down here. In the context of his crocked car this was an exceptional result and one that extended his points lead over Mortara t 11. With Jaguar scoring big, it was an absolute necessity to follow them home. Results like this fundamentally help in title battles and both Porsche and Wehrlein delivered, in pretty difficult circumstances.
He’s now scored in each of the six rounds, something that only one other driver has done (Sebastien Buemi). But Wehrlein is averaging 14 points per race. Last season Rowland took the title with an average of 11.5. That is why Wehrlein has to be considered the title favourite right now, irrespective of Jaguar’s recent form.
Additional reporting by Georgia Williams and Ellie Smith
