Nico Mueller described his late race demotion outside of a points scoring position as “shocking” after he felt he was unfairly compromised by Nick Cassidy, who allowed fellow Kiwi Mitch Evans to make eighth place his own.
Citroen Racing driver, Cassidy, took a late attack mode strategy and came through to eventually finish in ninth position. He cleared several cars including Mueller, who was running ahead of Evans after a race long holding pattern strategy in which his whole mandate was to assist teammate and eventual winner Pascal Wehrlein.
That was still the case after both Mueller and Evans were compromised by the second Full Course Yellow of the race, which saw each of them lose significant time and positions as Wehrlein and others were able to complete their PitBoost stops under Full Course Yellow as opposed to Evans and Mueller who had already stopped under green.
The actual incident, on Lap 34, was missed on the TV broadcast but saw Cassidy, on attack mode, clear Evans before lining up Mueller. He made his move at the first corner and then compromised the Porsche driver significantly as he ran wide, allowing Evans to clear the pair of them.
At that stage Cassidy had four minutes of his attack mode left but was unable to make a move on Evans, despite the significant all-wheel-drive advantage. Those surprised Mueller and Porsche.
Evans certainly benefited from the melee, getting four points for eight position to stay in championship contention, albeit now 21 points behind new leader Wehrlein with 29 to play for tomorrow.
Mueller also cryptically suggested that Cassidy may have been looking out for his countryman and former teammate Evans, and even helping to get the No.1 for a Stellantis manufacturer (Opel – the team Evans will join shortly).
“Maybe he was trying to get a certain starting number to a certain manufacturer, I don’t know, I have no idea,” Mueller told FEN.
“This was something I never expected. Honestly, I was shocked and I was like, okay, he didn’t put me in the wall, he did it very smartly, but it’s not something you expect from someone who’s racing for a different manufacturer than the guy you’re letting by.”
Mueller continued his criticism of Cassidy by stating that “Nick saved a lot of energy, he came through with attack mode, had a lot of attack mode left, so there was no point fighting him.
“I basically let him go and start finish, he went next to me, parked, and kind of blocked me towards the wall and just waited until Mitch drove past. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know if he wanted to kind of give back a favour, I have no idea.”
Cassidy’s teammate Jean-Eric Vergne was caught up in the incident too, with Mueller saying while Cassidy didn’t actually hit him, Vergne appeared to.
“I think he (Cassidy) had a chance to score a podium today, and he just blocked me first to let Mitch by, then he tried to do the same with JEV, but JEV drove into me instead of driving past me, so that didn’t work, and then he (Cassidy) decided to f*** off.”
Porsche director of factory motorsport for Formula E, Florian Modlinger, told Formula E Notebook that the incident needed to be “analysed”.
A slightly reticent Modlinger told FEN that he was “not happy was the last four, five, six laps, where we need to exactly analyse what happened there.
“There were several cars involved, and there Mitch was then passing Nico again and Nico got stuck and was pushed out of the points.”
Cassidy was succinct around the incident that riled Mueller and Porsche so much, telling FEN that “I just locked up and went straight on at Turn 1 and I didn’t have any confidence (on the brakes).”
Evans meanwhile said that he thought Cassidy “had either a problem or ran wide.”
“He was attacking Nico and seemed to run wide, so I think maybe he locked up. I don’t really know.”
