Pascal Wehrlein has declared that he should have finished in second at last weekend's Monaco E-Prix, rueing over an early mistake that cost him a podium in the Principality.
In Monaco, Wehrlein started on the front row of the grid alongside polesitter Jean-Eric Vergne and maintained the position on the opening lap of the race, unable to take the lead despite looking around the outside of the Frenchman into Turn 1.
Remaining in second, Wehrlein made a mistake only nine minutes into the race, locking up into Turn 1 which meant that the driver dropped to fourth place, with Oliver Rowland inheriting second while Felipe Massa moved into third.
Closing up to Massa, Wehrlein carefully managed his energy usage, meaning that he would have more usable energy than the third-placed Brazilian ahead in the final stages of the 45-minute + 1 lap affair.
Despite this, however, Wehrlein was unable to overtake Massa, missing out on the podium by 0.178s to settle for fourth – a result that the driver was far from happy with post-race:
“I’m not happy with the result; we should have been second," said Wehrlein, reflecting on the ninth race of the 2018/19 season.
"We were clearly the fastest car on the track but I made a small mistake and locked up which lost us two positions and cost us the podium.
"The positive is that our qualifying and race pace was fantastic and I’m really looking forward to getting on track in Berlin and aiming for the top.”
On the other side of the Mahindra garage, it was another tough weekend of racing for Jerome d'Ambrosio, with the Belgian racer failing to record a points finish for the second race in succession, with his prospects for the E-Prix harmed by a poor qualifying result and compounded by a three-place grid penalty recieved after crashing into Sam Bird in Paris:
“It was a difficult race," he said. "I still managed to make up a few positions from where I started, but not enough to grab points. Unfortunately, we didn’t seem to have the pace this race, so we have to try to figure out why and improve that for Berlin.”
Dilbagh Gill, Team Principal of Mahindra Racing, was encouraged by the team's pace in Monaco, with the Indian marque replicating its pace from the start of the season:
“Pascal’s qualifying and race pace was phenomenal and that is very encouraging," he said. "If not for a small mistake we would have had a podium.
"Jérôme had a tougher race and had to start at the back. A whole lot of things are very encouraging and we have found the pace again, which we showed in Paris and again here today, so it bodes well for the remainder of the season.”
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