The penalty that deprived Felipe Drugovich of eight points, saw him slip from second to fifth in the final Sanya EPrix classification and rule out a first ever 1-2 finish for Andretti has been described as “fairly harsh” by Andretti team principal Roger Griffiths.
The pair were disputing second position at Turn 9 when Drugovich hit the rear of the similar Porsche driven by Pascal Wehrlein, who did not lose a position in the incident that occurred on lap 36 of the 39 lap encounter.
The stewards determined that approaching the T9 hairpin that Drugovich ‘misjudged the braking and caused a collision with car 94 (Wehrlein). Both cars were able to continue but lost a position to Car 13 (Antonio Felix da Costa) with whom car 28 was fighting for position.’
Wehrlein was already racing with a five-second penalty on his shoulders after a collision earlier in the race with Norman Nato’s Nissan. Drugovich and Wehrlein were in 300kW mode at the time of the incident.
“I think it was fairly harsh, even though he did hit the back of Wehrlein,” Griffiths told Formula E Notebook.
“Even he (Wehrlein) admitted that he braked a bit earlier with one lap and a half to go. You know, we really didn’t think it was that much of an incident, and even Wehrlein in the steward’s office was questioning whether it warranted a penalty or not,
“But we got one regardless, and it is super frustrating and very bittersweet to be allowed to celebrate on the podium and then have it taken away from you, but it is what it is, we move on and we’ll focus on trying to get one too, in China
“The really frustrating part was that Wehrlein didn’t lose a position (actually did to da Costa), but you know we’ve also been on the other side of it, asking for harsher penalties, more consistency, so you know we kind of got what we’ve been asking for, so we have to acknowledge that and move on.”
Drugovich: “The More you do, the more you learn”
Felipe Drugovich’s breakthrough Monaco podium appears to have opened up a floodgate that had a kind of dam upon it earlier this season. His performances over the last four or five races have emboldened the belief that Andretti placed in him after signing him up late last summer.
The Brazilian has become attuned to Formula E racing after some awkward mistakes in the first half of the season and after breaking his 2025-26 points duck at Berlin, he’s contributed 42 points in four races. That’s just six less than Nico Mueller scored through the whole of last season in his one off campaign as Jake Dennis’ teammate.
“I didn’t have an easy start of the season, with many things not going our way, but I think things now are coming our way and I think we’re doing the right thing,” said Drugovich after the Sanya EPrix.
“The more you do that, the more you learn, and just everything gets better, consequently. I’m happy about it, I think it was a good race and a good day overall.
“I think mid-race we were probably not at the best spot with the energy and the red flag and safety cars, but we managed to get the one-two at the end.”
“I couldn’t be more pleased with the team and big congrats to Jake. He did an amazing job the whole weekend.”
