Pascal Wehrlein, Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy all gave their thoughts to Motorsport Week immediately after today’s first race of the London E-Prix double-header, with Wehrlein now leading the title by three points after a brilliant victory in the London ExCel centre.
Third at the start of the day, the German was third in the standings, but after overcoming the challenge of pole-sitter Mitch Evans, the Porsche man is now in the ascendency but with a slender three-point-advantage going into Race 2 tomorrow.
With team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa now out of the title race after his race-ending collision with Oliver Rowland, Wehrlein, when asked, whether he could rely on da Costa for support in Race 2, showed cautious optimism in that being an eventuality.
“Certainly for the Drivers’ Championship, if it makes sense, that would happen,” he said, adding: “Let’s see how it goes, right now there are three drivers fighting for the Championship, and all of us, on a good day, can put it on P1 so we have to give it everything tomorrow and see how what that brings us.”
Evans was frustrated having come away with only second having led the race for so long. Acknowledging that Wehrlein’s advantage with energy was due to being in the Porsche’s draught for long periods of the race, Evans recognised also that the outcome could have been far more negative.
“I’m trying to look at it that way [positively], but it’s tricky because I feel we didn’t approach it right and we didn’t win today, and we’d have the advantage tomorrow. It could be worse as well, but it could be a little bit better.
“It just came down to the energy difference, purely that. He [Wehrlein] was in the tow for most of the race which gave him that advantage, and when Seb [Buemi] got to the front, that hurt him too.
“We didn’t think the tow would be that sensitive, but it was and we paid the price.”
Cassidy, on paper, was the biggest loser out of the three, having been title-leader at lights-out to third, but having started 17th and finishing seventh, Cassidy, despite obvious disappointment, had reason to be philosophical.
“We focus on winning tomorrow, we win tomorrow and everything’s OK.”
“I think I was the fastest car today, and that gives me a lot of confidence to go into tomorrow with a positive feeling; of course there’s FP3 and we need to keep improving. I have the tools and we just have to execute a great day tomorrow.”
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