Porsche are in a race against time to ensure Nico Mueller can start this evenings first TDK Tokyo EPrix after his dramatic accident in the semi-final duel against Jae Dennis’ similar Andretti run Porsche.
Mueller suffered two impacts with the wall at the quick Tuen 11/12 chicane as he went up against eventual pole sitter Dennis. The second one cracked his survival cell meaning that the team have to prepare a new car around a spare tub before the race start at 20.00 local time.
According to Porsche director of factory motorsport for Formula E, Florian Modlinger, it will be a serious mission to ensure Mueller can take his fourth place on the starting grid and ensure that Porsche can keep up the push for both the teams and manufacturers titles this season.
Speaking to Formula E Notebook, Modlinger said that on the process of replacing the tub that “it’s already stickered up and it’s here. But it’s on the limit to make it to the race, and we have to wait for Parc Ferme and when it is ending, and then we can start to strip it (the damaged car) and move the components to it (the new tub).”
Mueller had reported back from the scene of the accident that the mechanics needed to ready the spare tub due to the severity of the push back from the right front wheel and suspension in to the chassis.
“Nico reported it immediately,” said Modlinger. “The drivers know already where to look on this car if we have a front impact, and Nico already came back and said, ‘prepare it’. We started to do it on Niko’s say-so.”
Ironically, Porsche customer team Andretti suffered a similar fate when they were forced to rebuild Felipe Drugovich’s car up around a fresh survival cell after his free practice shunt this morning.
Porsche and Andretti opted for the American team to use one of the spare Spark provided pool tubs for that rebuild. But this include installing wiring looms and other integral parts to that car, which means that Andretti are also in a serious race against time to ensure Drugovich can start from the rear of the 20 car grid.
On the processes of organising the workload of the two accidents across the two teams Modlinger added that “we discussed quickly with Roger (Griffiths) and Campbell (Hobson) team manager, after free practice how we proceed, and there we said we wait until qualifying is over if we would need a chassis or not, and then we can think about what is quickest and best to make it happen that Felipe can race,” said Modlinger.
“Now we need the chassis and have a lot of workload. If we have mechanics free for sure, and FIA allows, we will help them, and vice versa like what we did in the past, but that’s also a thing FIA needs to agree on. At the moment, everybody has so much work that we are focusing on our own jobs.”
