– Pascal Wehrlein dominated the opening race of the London E-Prix on Saturday and took the lead in the 2025/26 Formula E World Championship ahead of the title decider on Sunday.
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The Porsche factory driver won with a six-second lead over the previous points leader Jake Dennis in the Andretti. Jaguar driver Antonio Felix da Costa completed the podium in the tight ExCeL Arena.
This puts Wehrlein five points ahead of second-placed Dennis before the final race of the season – with 29 points still up for grabs. The 11th and 10th places for Mitch Evans and Oliver Rowland respectively, on the other hand, practically end their title chances.
Porsche dominates in qualifying
Porsche made headlines throughout the weekend: Already in qualifying, the two factory cars contested the final duel, in which Nico Müller eased off in the last sector to give his teammate Wehrlein the pole position.
Together with Dan Ticktum, who was in the second starting row next to Evans in the customer Porsche, it was a dream qualifying for the German, who had already announced on Friday that team orders could play a role in the title fight.
It was therefore no surprise that after an unusually calm start at ExCeL, he turned into turn 1 unchallenged. Wehrlein had already built a three-second lead in the first lap.
Nico Müller holds up Wehrlein’s pursuers
Müller’s task was clear: He was to slow down Evans and the rest of the field on the indoor-outdoor circuit, with the tight track characteristics helping him fend off the Jaguar driver’s attacks.
This drew the ire of Evans, who described Müller’s tactics as “borderline.” Not helpful for his comeback was also that laps seven and eight were run under Full-Course Yellow.
The cause was a collision between Zane Maloney (Lola) and Edoardo Mortara (Mahindra), in which Maloney damaged his car and had to retire early.
Evans with a bold strategy
When the race was restarted, the procession initially continued until the drivers began to use their Attack Mode and pit stop boost from lap 17. Evans pitted immediately.
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This gave him the clear track he needed to activate Attack Mode in lap 18. In the following lap, he passed Müller and took the virtual second position, as Wehrlein had not yet pitted.
At first, it looked like the now extremely fast Evans had the best strategy. At times, it even seemed as if he could overtake his title rival once Porsche brought the 2025 champion into the pits.
di Grassi’s crash decides the race
However, the racing gods had other plans: A run-off by Lucas di Grassi into the barrier at turn 9 in lap 21 allowed Wehrlein – and many others – a favorable pit stop under yellow flag conditions.
This allowed him to effortlessly maintain his lead. The frustrated Evans immediately realized that his chance was gone – instead of fighting for the podium, he now had to fight for a place in the top 10.
It got worse for him: He was overtaken by Müller, who had also suffered under the badly timed FCY phase. At this point, Wehrlein was already a reassuring eight seconds ahead of second-placed Ticktum.
Felix da Costa moves past Ticktum
Behind them, it was tight: Ticktum, Felix da Costa, and Dennis fought hard for the remaining podium places, with the Andretti driver prevailing in lap 28 and taking third place.
Shortly afterwards, the former points leader also took second place from Ticktum and quickly pulled out a three-second lead, while da Costa soon passed the Briton as well.
Thus, the podium places were decided, but Ticktum continued to fall back. In a hard-fought four-way battle for fourth place in the last laps, he was passed and dropped to seventh behind Sebastien Buemi, Mortara, and Taylor Barnard.
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After the race, however, he moved up to sixth place after Mortara dropped to seventh due to a penalty for his late collision with Ticktum in turn 1, while Evans, Nick Cassidy, and Rowland completed the top 10.
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