A violent crash that left reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein trapped upside down in his Porsche was just part of the drama in a wild Formula E season-opener in Sao Paulo, won by Mitch Evans from the back of the grid.
WEHRLEIN'S FRIGHTENING CRASH
Wehrlein was sent flying into the wall by Nick Cassidy's damaged Jaguar moments after Cassidy had clashed with DS Penske driver Maxilimilian Guenther in a frenetic lead pack.
A look at the incident between Wehrlein and Cassidy that brought out the red flag 🚩
— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) December 7, 2024
Pascal Wehrlein is out of the car#SaoPauloEPrix pic.twitter.com/QTFPUKfhwp
Cassidy appeared unable to steer his car as Wehrlein tried to go around the outside of him at the right-hander that follows the opening complex where Guenther ended up in the wall.
Wheel to wheel contact tipped Wehrlein's Porsche into the wall onto its side, and it then slid down the track upside down after rebounding off the barriers.
Though Wehrlein quickly reported over team radio that he was OK, he was also stuck in his inverted car, repeating "send someone fast, I can't get out" with urgency.
He was upside down for almost 10 minutes before being extricated and heading off for medical checks.
From there on he was directed to a local hospital for further precautionary checks, but with no serious injuries suspected.
LAST TO FIRST FOR EVANS
Evans didn't set a lap in qualifying due to his Jaguar's emergency brake being triggered, leaving him 22nd on the grid.
He made rapid progress but the key to his victory was the lucky timing of a first red flag for Jake Dennis's stranded Andretti Porsche at Turn 1, which took a long time to make safe enough to remove.
🔴 RED FLAG 🔴
— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) December 7, 2024
Jake Dennis has stopped out on track. There's an isolation issue with his car#SaoPauloEPrix pic.twitter.com/GavGs9vNVy
Attack mode has become extremely powerful again in the Gen3 Evo era, as it now offers four-wheel-drive as well as a power boost and the revised Hankook tyres are soft enough for those advantages to be fully exploited.
That means cars with attack mode deployed can sweep past rivals with massive acceleration and top speed advantages - and at the restart after the Dennis stoppage the Jaguars of sixth-placed Cassidy and 10th-placed Evans were the only frontrunners with another attack mode deployment to use.
Helped by a penalty for the luckless Oliver Rowland (more on him in a moment), Evans and Cassidy swept to the front and established a temporary Jaguar 1-2, with Evans at the head of it as he took his attack mode later than Cassidy and arrived on his team-mate's tail with 30 seconds of it still to use.
Once their attack mode elapsed, they were caught by the Porsches and Guenther before the Wehrlein/Cassidy incident that halted the race again.
Evans controlled the restart after that, fending off huge pressure from Wehrlein's team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa to secure an incredible win.
ROWLAND ROBBED
Nissan driver Rowland had taken the lead from polesitter Wehrlein at the start and looked to have the pace, attack mode tactics and energy efficiency to control whatever the race threw at him.
The Dennis red flag coming out when his second attack mode was in progress was a blow but a drive-through penalty for a spike of over-power then wrecked his race totally, leaving him only 14th in a race he should have won.
MCLAREN'S MISSED CHANCE
All four Nissan powertrain cars picked up those over-power spike penalties during the race, but the McLarens of Taylor Barnard and Sam Bird and Rowland's team-mate Norman Nato all got theirs in the opening stages.
They then had attack modes still to use at the post-Dennis-stoppage restart, and rookie Barnard and Bird surged into the lead fight.
At the second restart they had significantly more useable energy than the leaders, too, but Barnard could not find a way past Evans and da Costa despite that advantage and had to settle for a still-remarkable podium ahead of Bird, Edoardo Mortara's Mahindra and Nato.
Top 10 finishers
- Mitch Evans (Jaguar)
- Antonio Felix da Costa (Porsche)
- Taylor Barnard (McLaren)
- Sam Bird (McLaren)
- Edoardo Mortara (Mahindra)
- Norman Nato (Nissan)
- Nyck de Vries (Mahindra)
- Sebastien Buemi (Envision)
- Dan Ticktum (Kiro)
- Jean-Eric Vergne (DS Penske)
