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Wehrlein still wary of opposition despite Porsche's strong start
Pascal Wehrlein isn’t letting Porsche’s early season advantage go to his head as the team looks to build on his Formula E title win last season.
The factory TAG Heuer Porsche outfit currently leads the teams’ championship with twice the number of points as closest challenger NEOM McLaren with two poles from two for Wehrlein and a brace of second places for teammate Antonio Felix da Costa. But while Porsche clearly has the strongest package so far this season, Wehrlein knows all to well that Formula E’s competitive nature means that the manufacturer can’t afford to get too comfortable.
“I think there are a couple of good guys here and good teams, and definitely we have a super-strong package,” he said. “Every weekend we just have to deliver. In Sao Paulo, it looked like Oli (Rowland), for example, had a pretty strong race. We know that Mexico somehow suits us every year.
“Certainly, I feel like there will be more teams and more drivers involved. Last year, Oli also missed two races, so I feel like it's a bit unfair to take him out of (contention in) the last weekend, in terms of a real go at the championship. But I feel like last year the last weekend was between Jaguar and us, and I definitely feel like this year there will be more teams and more drivers involved until the last weekend.”
Wehrlein came to Mexico City having suffered a huge crash in the season opener that necessitated an entire rebuild. Despite the crash robbing him of a shot of victory in Brazil and a chance to get a hefty haul of points on the board early int he season, it’s not something he’s dwelling on.
“On my side, I have to say, I'm just happy that, (after), rebuilding a completely new car here in Mexico, feels normal, and I can fight with it again,” he said. “There's always small doubts, when you have to rebuild a completely new car – if it works, or if something feels different. And definitely, I have to say a big congrats and and thank you to my mechanics and to my team for an awesome job and faultless rebuild.
“I've forgotten it already,” he said of the crash. “I don't mind crashing. I don't mind if it hurts for a couple of days -- I'm always looking forward to the comeback. Obviously this one was a bit tough, because I suffered a little for two weeks, but it was a perfect time to recover from it as well over Christmas, a quiet time and no regrets on missing something.”
Dominik Wilde
Dominik often jokes that he was born in the wrong country – a lover of NASCAR and IndyCar, he covered both in a past life as a junior at Autosport in the UK, but he’s spent most of his career to date covering the sliding and flying antics of the U.S.’ interpretation of rallycross. Rather fitting for a man that says he likes “seeing cars do what they’re not supposed to do”, previously worked for a car stunt show, and once even rolled a rally car with Travis Pastrana. He was also comprehensively beaten in a kart race by Sebastien Loeb once, but who hasn’t been?
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