London Trawling… An Excel-lent Round-up to Season 12

Porsche Savours Victory

Porsche motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach told Formula E Notebook last Sunday that Porsche’s success in the Gen3 era of the all-electric world championship was especially pleasing because it included consistent excellence in performance across the whole rules set.

“I think the biggest achievement overall is that we know how close Formula E racing is and you never can dominate,” said Laudenbach.

“You can be good throughout the season. This is now the third season where we are fighting for world championship titles and winning world championship titles,” added Laudenbach. “I think that in itself is the achievement. I think that’s the most important to get there and stay there. I don’t know exactly. I think out of 10 possible titles in Gen3, we have won, including Jake Dennis’ title (with Andretti in a Porsche 99X Electric in 2023 ) six titles.”

Taylor’s Swift Victory

On Sunday Taylor Barnard became the youngest Formula E race winner on the last possible race for him to be able to achieve the feat. Maximilian Guenther had previously held this record, winning the Santiago EPrix in 2020 at 22 years and 200 days old for BMW i Andretti. Barnard will be that exact age at the opening Gen4 race set to take place in Jeddah this December. 

Barnard told Formula E Notebook after his maiden win in what was DS Automobiles’ last race “of course, it’s the best send-off for them. It’s the best opportunity for me to do it out in front of my home crowd, so lots of best-case scenarios this weekend in the last race.”

The race wasn’t easy for the DS Penske driver thanks to the carnage that erupted around him, which he said “we knew that was going to happen before the race. There are two championships up for grabs, so the whole strategy was to take an attack and get out of the mess, which worked perfectly.

“Obviously, it’s not guaranteed that there’s going to be that much mess, but it worked out exactly as we’d wanted it to. I still had two Mahindra’s to get through though, when they had more energy and more attack than me, so I’m speechless.”

Jake Dennis ‘Menaced’

Jake Dennis’ double title dreams were smashed after picking up damage after the infamous four-car incident in the closing stages of the race on Sunday. The Andretti driver told FEN after the race that he had “seen the on-board and it’s quite clear. Pascal (Wehrlein) obviously hits the back of Joel (Eriksson). And at that point, he knows he’s already getting a penalty because he’s taken Joel straight out of the race. 

“So, then he just decides to not turn at all in a 90-degree left-hand corner and puts him straight in the wall and perfectly times it that he can still get round. Obviously, Joel’s blocking him. But in the end, it was just a straight-up take-out and destroyed my car and any chance I had.”

In addition to the puncture Dennis confirmed he had “also damaged the right-front suspension, puncture, front wing. The car was f***ed.”

Mueller-ed

Nico Mueller had a weekend he won’t forget after giving himself over to Porsche’s plan to ensure his teammate Pascal Wehrlein became a double champion. The Swiss ace was given a direct brief to protect Wehrlein at all costs, much to the chagrin of those behind including on both days Mitch Evans.

“I think it was one of my best weekends in terms of execution, performance, ever in Formula E,” Mueller told FEN.

“Just going away from this venue yesterday and today with zero points is very frustrating. Again, I feel like I’ve done nothing wrong and I’ve been performing and qualifying in the races, but obviously we had, first of all, priorities that were very clear and we maximised the opportunity in the Drivers’ Championship for Pascal.”

But Mueller was uneasy about the veracity of the racing that took place, for which he was roundly criticized by Evans across the two days.

“It just feels like to end the championship with a race like today’s, I think it’s a bit over the top. It wasn’t really needed and it gives it a bit of a bitter taste. Anyway, I think in an hour or two, the time, we might feel a little bit more ‘ok again’. I feel like when you fight for pole on both days and you have the performance; you at least expect to bring home a couple of trophies.” concluded Mueller.

Evans Above!

Jaguar TCS’ Mitch Evans told FEN that the real start of the track war with Porsche occurred last month in Tokyo with Porsche accusing Jaguar and Envision of colluding in the first race when Sebastien Buemi altered his pace in an effort to assist teammate Joel Eriksson.

“I think it’s pretty clear that Envision’s not there to help us,” said Evans. “I mean, they just were trying to spin it, we had no idea what Seb was doing in Tokyo, zero idea. Ultimately, they (Porsche) just tried to create some story out of nothing, really. I can see how it looks, I guess, but there’s nothing in it. And I think this weekend shows that we don’t have the control over Envision like they do with (CUPRA) Kiro, which is literally a four-car team.”

Evans said an emotional farewell to his Jaguar TCS Racing team before joining Opel GSE which is expected to be confirmed shortly. In his time with the Big Cat, Evans has started 142 EPrixs, scored a remarkable 16 EPrixs wins (11.1% strike rate), 11 pole positions and eight fastest laps. He has had nine teammates (Adam Carroll, Nelson Piquet Jnr, Alex Lynn, James Calado, Tom Blomqvist, Sam Bird, Norman Nato, Nick Cassidy and Antonio Felix da Costa).

Mitch’s Consistency Concern

Evans bemoaned what he thought was perceived lack of consistency in stewarding, a topic that has flared up across the entire season.

“People in Tokyo or Sanya or Shanghai are getting penalties for almost nothing,” Evans told FEN. “Look at Norman’s (Nato) penalty in Tokyo. He touches a wheel and he gets a penalty. I thought at times Nico (Mueller) was moving under braking. 

“In some other races, some guy moves under braking, and they at least get a warning. Nothing today. He was clearly moving under braking, and they (the stewards) do nothing. Everyone can have an opinion on it; it’s the fact that it’s inconsistent and that’s just infuriating.”

DAC on the Attack

An agitated Antonio Felix da Costa told FEN that he believed his former boss at Porsche, Florian Modlinger, was instrumental in what he believes were overly hostile tactics at London Excel last weekend.

“You can’t deny how talented Florian (Modlinger) is at his job and he’s brought a numerous amount of titles to Porsche, and on his past as well, he’s a great technical part of a team and on the management as well. 

“But he plays political games, and fair enough, he gets what he wants, he’s able to achieve what he wants. But then you cannot be mad when it bites you in the ass, you cannot be mad. Because today, well Envision didn’t do much for us, but you saw other people that had nothing to do with this, that made our life a little bit easier, and that’s just because of the people that they sometimes are and the games that they sometimes play. When it comes back to bite them, you cannot have it both ways, it’s as simple as that.”

Pascal’s Future Warning

2025-26 ABB FIA Formula E world champion, Pascal Wehrlein, used his initial title winning platform to signal a stark warning to rivals at London.

“We delivered when we had to deliver,” said Wehrlein. “We don’t crack under pressure. We love the pressure, we embrace it and we get even better with pressure. That is fantastic. About today’s race, it’s one of the most unsporting and unfair things I have seen, how Antonio (Felix da Costa) drove. But that’s how it is with the enemies in a paddock. Still, we made it and there is another message ‘I don’t forget things. I won’t forget what happened here.” 

Wehrlein had previously made his feelings on da Costa clear in a radio message as the race played out in the final lap when he and his former teammate rubbed wheels in the final few corners. Wehrlein commented markedly on da Costa on the final lap, saying….

WEH (radio): “Mate look at him still wants to fight. Sore loser. F***ing beat you three years in a row.”

Edo’s Remarkable Sunday Explained

Edoardo Mortara ended the season with his third podium of the season after following his Mahindra teammate Nyck de Vries home as Mahindra celebrated its first double podium for almost a decade. Felix Rosenqvist and Nick Heidfeld took a 1-3 in the Berlin EPrix back in June 2017.

“It was a very eventful and intense day, after clipping the wall in the group stage, which made my day in the duels extremely complicated,” said the Mahindra driver.

“The car was going all over the place, but we still managed to get to the final, which was incredible. And then from there, the race was positive and we executed quite well the race as a team, managed to get second and third. I honestly should have done probably a slightly better job by covering Taylor (Barnard) for Nyck, but nevertheless, very happy and we managed to clinch third place in the Teams Championship.”

A Future Formula E Ace?

Current F3 driver Louis Sharp visited the paddock at London last weekend, chaperoned by his manager Alexander Jakobi. The 19-year-old is racing for the Prema Racing team this season and told FEN that he would find a potential future test in Formula E “really interesting to tackle”.

Simsy Style

Formula E race winner Alexander Sims returned to the Formula E paddock for another stint as drivers advisor to the stewards. The ex-BMW and Mahindra driver was fresh from racing at the Road America IMSA race for Corvette, sporting a remarkable ‘deep south mullet’ haircut that has been lavishly curated for several months.

Expansion Ahoy!

Formula E Notebook celebrated its third full season of coverage at London last weekend by informing partners, teams and drivers of its expansion ahead of the 2026-27 season. Additional features are set to include more features, films, social media insights and an all-new podcast platform to run as a sister site to the existing platform. FEN will also be offering syndicated news and features on Formula E next season.

Interested parties should contact Sam Smith on s.smith@fenotebook.com for additional detail and information on future media and marketing partnerships.