Pascal Wehrlein has admitted that claiming pole position last weekend at the season-opening Mexico City E-Prix was “a relief” rather than “a shock”, given Porsche’s qualifying woes last year.
Ahead of the first qualifying session of Season 10, several eyes were on the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, to see if they had found more performance over one-lap during the off-season.
Whether the answer is yes remains somewhat unknown, with Wehrlein having been the only Porsche-powered driver to qualify in the top 12. For Wehrlein specifically, simply progressing to the duels was a light surprise, as he only made seven duel appearances in 2023 – ERT’s Dan Ticktum made the same number of duel appearances.
Wehrlein claiming pole wasn’t expected and was certainly a huge shock, especially as three Jaguar-powered drivers progressed to the semi-finals. In fact, Wehrlein’s final against Sébastian Buemi in Mexico City was his first final appearance of the Gen3 era, highlighting how rarely he’s progressed deep into the duels.
With overtaking being virtually impossible at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit because of how dirty the surface was off line, Wehrlein was able to convert his pole into a fifth career Formula E victory with relative ease. His win wasn’t confirmed until four hours after the race, following a post-race investigation.
Realistically, had Wehrlein not claimed pole, then it’s highly unlikely he would’ve claimed victory. He immediately recognised the importance of his pole position, as it answered Porsche’s question as to whether their hard work over the off-season would result in an improved performance over one-lap.
“I wouldn’t say a shock, but definitely a relief, because you never know until the first race how big was your progress and how big was the progress of the other teams,” Wehrlein said on Tuesday afternoon, following a question by Motorsport Week during a virtual roundtable.
“So surely coming into the first weekend we thought, okay, we made a step in qualifying, but is it really enough, how big of a step did the other teams do? And, yeah, therefore, definitely it was a relief seeing that qualifying went great in Mexico. As that was our weak area last season.”
As mentioned, Wehrlein’s qualifying performances in Season 9 were, on the whole, below par for a championship contender. It was his poor one-lap pace which arguably lost him the Drivers’ Championship, with him acknowledging that his average starting position wasn’t good enough.
In fact, the Stuggart-based squad’s poor qualifying pace cost them both titles, making that a “key area to attack” during the off-season.
With the hardware being under homologation until the end of Season 10, Porsche has only been able to make improvements to their software, with Wehrlein revealing that the side has also improved their one-lap pace by gaining a greater understanding of the hard Hankook tyres and adjusting their setup.
“Yeah, well, the hardware is homologated for two years,” said Wehrlein. “So mainly everything is on setup, on software, on tyre understanding and how to extract the maximum out of the package.
“We always had a strong race package. I’m not 100 per cent sure, but my qualifying average last season was nine point something. It was like 9.8 or 9.7 around that area. And we finished the championship fourth. So it definitely means that we were a lot stronger in the races than we were in qualifying.
“And, yeah, that was the key area to attack, to improve. And, yeah, like I said, on the hardware side, you are limited to what you can do, but there’s definitely a lot around setup and software, et cetera, to make the car better.”
As a result of claiming pole position and the race win, the 29-year-old sits at the top of the Drivers’ Championship and boasts a 10-point lead over Buemi.
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