Pascal Wehrlein has insisted that Mahindra Racing must regroup ahead of the European leg of Formula E's 2018/19 campaign after a "lucky" but disappointing performance in Sanya.
Mahindra Racing started Season Five under strong circumstances, with Jerome d'Ambrosio taking third place in Ad Diriyah before winning in Marrakesh while Wehrlein secured a podium in Santiago prior to taking pole position in Mexico City, missing out on a potential maiden victory.
Since Mexico City, however, the team has struggled for form, with a disappointing Hong Kong E-Prix ending in a double retirement for the team while both d'Ambrosio and Wehrlein struggled for pace over the course of the weekend, with neither driver placing higher than 17th in all sessions.
While Mahindra returned to the points at last weekend's Sanya E-Prix, finishing in sixth and seventh to draw level with Envision Virgin Racing at the top of the Teams' Championship, the race-winning and podium-challenging pace that the Indian marque showed at the start of the season has vanished, with the squad falling back from the front of the pack.
Describing the race in Sanya as "lucky", Wehrlein stated that his M5Electro package lacked pace throughout the 45-minute + 1 lap race and that in order to understand this deficit, the team must regroup ahead of the Rome E-Prix on April 13:
"Overall it was a difficult race for us," said Wehrlein. "I made a couple of mistakes in free practice which impacted our weekend a little bit, especially in qualifying.
"The race was not great; we were not fast enough, and we ended up watching the mirrors more than attacking. We got lucky in the end with some incidents on track, but the pace was not there.
"We now need to use this time between the next race to regroup and find out why."
D'Ambrosio, who is now only one point adrift of leader Antonio Felix da Costa in the Drivers' Championship, echoed his team-mate's thoughts, describing the result as "good as opposed to "great":
"We had a good day, not a great day," said the Belgian. "We scored points with two cars, but we lacked a bit of pace, which we saw in the race.
"I think small things made a big difference; small things could have made you look really good or average and it’s all these details that we can improve on a little bit going into the next race."
Dilbagh Gill, Team Principal, added: "I think we were solid in free practice and qualifying. We have definitely showed that we have recovered and, most importantly, overcome the problem we had in Hong Kong.
"However, on race pace we got a bit behind, but both drivers did well to bring the cars home in the points which means Mahindra Racing is still right up there fighting for both championship titles."
