Porsche’s new director of factory motorsport for the Formula E programme says that he is thriving on the pressure of the marque’s long wait for a first victory in the championship.
Florian Modlinger joined Porsche last month and is leading a restructured team this season after the previous management axis of Pascal Zurlinden and Amiel Lindesay changed through both standing down.
Modlinger, who has experience of working with Porsche’s German rivals BMW and Audi in DTM and Formula E, has been put in charge by new Porsche Motorsport head Thomas Laudenbach with the remit of at least delivering wins and a title challenge in 2022.
Pascal Wehrlein will start today’s Mexico City E-Prix from pole position, Porsche’s third top spot since it entered FE in 2019.
But its pace has often been squandered, with only three podium positions having been achieved in the 28 races it has started so far.
The Race says
Porsche’s latest bid for a first Formula E victory later today is heavy with expectation.
Morally of course it ‘won’ in Mexico last June but the consummation of Pascal Wehrlein’s Puebla victory was cruelly snatched away because of an administrative error regarding tyre identification.
While the revenge headlines are poised should either Wehrlein or Andre Lotterer win today, the real pressure relief valve will be deflated throughout the senior management of the team.
New Porsche vice president of motorport Laudenbach told The Race last month that there were “certain expectations” that have to be met by manufacturers such as Porsche. Not winning a race after almost three years of competing falls well short in those expectations.
That Porsche’s potential breakthrough comes just a few weeks after new ‘on the ground’ boss Modlinger had been headhunted for the new leadership role just adds to the tantalising plotline of Formula E’s last remaining German giant finally getting a sizable monkey off its back.
Modlinger has told The Race that the pressure is something he personally thrives on because “to be honest, for me working in motorsport you always have the pressure”.
“It’s our life, it’s our passion and I do not feel different at Porsche,” he said.
“Porsche has, since the fifties, been really active in a lot of series with a lot of success, and it is the same as like Ferrari.
“Both manufacturers and brands aim to win races and to win titles and, for me, I want to win every race, that’s my target, I live for that.
“It’s not additional pressure because I try to approach every race, every year, similar: we want to win.”
But extra pressure was heaped on the team after a difficult first race in Diriyah last month when Lotterer looked set for at least a third place but plummeted out of the points because Porsche made a catastrophic error regarding the recalibrated timing of the race after an early safety car period caused the first appearance of the extra time rule.
“After the safety car we were not quick enough at predicting the pace of the leader,” said Modlinger.
“This means the pace of the leader has an effect on the remaining laps, and the other factor was that our energy mode is not the most efficient way to run the race.
“On top of this Andre defended really hard against Jake Dennis which made him use more energy than was allocated per lap.
“These were small factors. If there was only one then it would not look so bad. But these three four factors together, it looked really, really bad.
“We analysed everything in detail and, as you saw for race two, the team worked hard overnight, and the correct measures were taken, and we already improved several topics which went wrong.”
Although Porsche might be tempted to focus more on the Gen3 era coming in 2023, Modlinger reckons that there is still a great deal that can be achieved in the final Gen2 season.
“The car is developed, the regulations are stable like they are, but we have the regulation changes with qualifying and the overtime in races, all teams need to adapt quickly from Season 7 (2021) to Season 8 (2022),” he said.
Porsche is set to use the gap between Mexico City and the Rome double-header in April to decide upon how it will structure its parallel manufacturer testing programme with its new Gen3 package alongside the current racing season.
