How Wehrlein turned the tables to move back ahead in Formula E title tussle

One look at the championship standings heading to Jakarta would have suggested that Pascal Wehrlein was very much in the hunt for the 2023 Formula E title. After all, he was the closest rival to Envision’s Nick Cassidy and well clear of Jake Dennis in the similar Porsche-powered Andretti car.

But the reality was that the German driver was losing his grip on the 2023 title fight, with Porsche having been usurped by Jaguar as the benchmark powertrain in Formula E in the crucial middle part of the season.

Wehrlein’s pair of wins in Diriyah in January had started to seem like a distant memory and, with Jaguar-powered cars winning the last four races across Sao Paulo, Berlin and Monaco, the odds were stacked against the Porsche ace on FE’s second visit to Indonesia.

But on a weekend where the need for energy-saving was minimised, and qualifying played a bigger role than it has done in the Gen3 era so far, Wehrlein reset the title fight with a fine victory and a sixth-place result across the two races.

The German driver laid the foundation for his first FE victory in over four months by putting himself third on the grid for the opening race of the weekend, his best starting position since Monaco in April 2022. 

As the 36-lap contest got underway, Wehrlein made an excellent start from the cleaner side of the grid, immediately dispatching Dennis for second before challenging polesitter Maximilian Guenther for the lead on the outside of Turn 1. Wehrlein smartly backed away from that move but kept the pressure up on the Maserati MSG driver, whose race pace had been a bit of a question mark despite topping all sessions up to that point of the weekend. As it turned out, Guenther didn’t have the pace to stay at the front, and Wehrlein wasted little time in making a move, passing the Maserati driver into Turn 1 on the fourth lap of the race.

Wehrlein retained the lead through the attack mode cycle – with drivers getting eight minutes of additional power in Jakarta compared to the usual four – but in the second half of the race, he started coming under serious pressure from Dennis, who had also passed Guenther.

The crucial moment took place at the start of lap 24, with Dennis moving to the inside into Turn 1, the chief point of overtaking on the 1.5-mile circuit. But long before they had reached the braking point, Wehrlein jinked to the right to cover off the Andretti driver, forcing him to take evasive action. Dennis nearly lost a place to Guenther in the process but gathered himself to stay within striking distance of Wehrlein.

Wehrlein got his Formula E title charge back up and running in the Jakarta opener

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Over the remaining third of the race, Wehrlein had to try hard to stave off the British driver, with the two circulating within a second of each other. But Dennis was never really in a position to attempt another overtaking move, with Wehrlein crossing the finish line 0.477s clear to end a barren run of no podiums stretching back to January. It was a crucial result for the 28-year-old and one that could decide who lifts the crown come London at the end of July.

Second place and a sixth podium of the season was also crucial for Dennis’ title hopes, but the Andretti driver was more frustrated with Wehrlein’s defence, which he believed broke FE’s rules of racing. "I don't know how he got away with that, to be honest, it's ridiculous,” he said. “There's obviously a rule and every driver generally knows the rule. We can't protest against them because they also have a Porsche powertrain, so yeah, [a] bit ridiculous.”

Guenther wasn’t able to contend with Wehrlein and Dennis in the closing laps, eventually finishing 1.4s behind the winner in third. While a podium was a great result in itself for Maserati, especially after its woeful start to the season, there was naturally some disappointment at the Monaco-based team given how rapid Guenther had been over a single lap.

That disappointment would turn into joy on Sunday, though, as Maserati was able to make some overnight changes to the car and aid Guenther in taking a historic first win for the Stellantis marque in Formula E.

It was Maserati's first win in any world championship single-seater race since Juan Manuel Fangio’s Formula 1 success at the 1957 German Grand Prix

The first indication of Maserati’s improved pace came in qualifying, already the team’s strongest point in Jakarta, with Guenther setting a blistering time of 1m07.753s to take pole position by nearly six-tenths.

Come the race itself, Guenther found it relatively easy to stay in front of the competition in the opening stages compared to Saturday, but a huge problem arose when Dennis managed to leapfrog him by taking his attack mode a lap later. With overtaking opportunities still limited as a two-lap increase in race length was not enough to necessitate extreme energy saving, Guenther had to tuck in behind the in-form Andretti driver in the battle for the lead.

But when the second round of attack mode activations began, Guenther beat Dennis at his own game, upping his pace significantly when the latter was the first of the two to go through the loop at Turn 16. Arming his own attack mode a lap later, Guenther was able to rejoin the track just in front of his former BMW team-mate, putting himself back in the lead of the race.

For a while, Dennis managed to keep the pressure up, but the German driver was soon able to check out from the competition, eventually taking the chequered flag with a 2.8s buffer to become the first driver to win a race from pole position this season. It was also Guenther’s first victory in FE since his 2020-21 campaign with BMW, as well as the first for Maserati in any world championship single-seater race since Juan Manuel Fangio’s Formula 1 success at the 1957 German Grand Prix.

Guenther used Dennis's tactics against him to regain the lead in the second race

Photo by: Andreas Beil

“I'm absolutely over the moon and so proud about this achievement,” said the 25-year-old, who spent a trying year at Nissan in 2022 after BMW’s FE exit before joining Maserati for its FE entry this year. “The season hasn't been as easy [for Maserati], especially the start of it and we really kept believing in us, working hard, working in a good direction and clearly the momentum of our season has changed a few weekends ago. Berlin was great and we scored good points in the last few races and now the top two poles here, one win and another podium is huge. Just extremely happy.”

Dennis again missed out on a victory despite qualifying on the front row, but the result marked his fourth consecutive podium of the season, and seventh overall. 

Third place in the race went to Jaguar’s Mitch Evans, who bagged some solid points on what was otherwise Jaguar’s worst weekend of the season. Both the factory cars were mysteriously off the pace of the frontrunners, particularly in the opening leg of the weekend, struggling both in qualifying and race trim. And as if a lack of pace wasn’t concerning enough, Sam Bird had taken out team-mate Evans for a second time in 2023. Running ninth behind Evans with just three laps to go in race one, Bird misjudged his braking into Turn 1 and slammed into the back of the Kiwi, sending him into immediate retirement. Having already cost the team valuable points when he similarly took out Evans in Hyderabad, it was another disaster for Jaguar – and one that could have serious consequences on the title fight. 

Jaguar was able to put the incident behind it on Sunday and deliver some tangible improvements over one-lap pace, particularly for Evans, but he lacked the speed of the frontrunners in the race and was lucky to finish third as a train of cars followed him in the final laps.

The Envision team was also impacted by Jakarta being a bogey track for its powertrain supplier Jaguar, with Cassidy finishing seventh on Saturday after making little progress from 10th on the grid. An improvement in pace was visible on Sunday, but Cassidy felt he was simply out of place in the race, having missed out on the duels stage in qualifying. Some points were still up for grabs as he climbed from 10th to seventh by the halfway point of the race, but an ill-judged attempt at passing Wehrlein into Turn 16 damaged his front wing and left him at the very back of the pack.

 Seven points was all Cassidy managed to score across the two races, which meant both Wehrlein and Dennis were able to leapfrog him in the drivers’ standings. Wehrlein now holds a narrow one-point lead over Dennis, with Cassidy six points adrift in third with five races of the season still to go. Evans also remains in the battle for the title, albeit 25 points behind new leader Wehrlein.

Cassidy dropped from first to third in the standings after a nightmare weekend in Indonesia

Photo by: Gareth Harford / Motorsport Images

While much of the focus in Jakarta was on Jaguar and Porsche-powered cars, DS Penske and Nissan teams also put in starring performances to bag a solid haul of points. Jean-Eric Vergne and Stoffel Vandoorne finished fourth and fifth in the opening contest of the weekend, using the same powertrain as Maserati’s Guenther. Nissan effectively took over from DS Penske on Sunday, with Sacha Fenestraz and Norman Nato charging through the field to finish fourth and fifth respectively. It was easily the best points haul of the season for Nissan and also its first double top-10 finish of the year.

On a weekend when his team-mate Guenther starred, Edoardo Mortara had to settle for lowly sixth and eighth-place finishes. Facing Guenther in duels on both occasions, Mortara wasn’t able to qualify as high up as it was possible had he been paired with a driver from another team, compromising his chances at a track where overtaking proved to be harder than usual. Missing Attack Mode made things even tougher in race two, for which he had qualified fourth, before a lock-up at Turn 1 due to braking issues cost him several positions in one go.

With just five races to go this season, the Formula E title fight is still wide open

Photo by: DPPI