Wehrlein closes season on an upbeat note for TAG Heuer Porsche

Going into Formula E’s final weekend in London, outgoing champion Pascal Wehrlein insisted his championship position was meaningless and that his focus was on helping Porsche secure the teams’ and manufacturers’ titles.

With title retention out of the question, second was all the German could hope for. He ultimately slipped to third with the resurgent Nick Cassidy completing a late-season rally to second, but as far as Wehrlein was concerned, it was job done.

“The target was to win the teams’ and manufactures’ championship, and we have achieved that,” he said. “And honestly, finishing second or third doesn't change the world to me. So big congratulations to the team. They worked really hard, and the last two years we've won everything there's to win. And yeah, everyone can be super happy.”

With Wehrlein’s drivers’ title last year and Porsche’s double this year – including the first manufacturers’ world title (the trophy was introduced last season but became a full FIA world championship this year) – Porsche has become the first brand to win all three Formula E titles.

It marks steady progress for the team in its six years which finished eighth in its first two seasons, then seventh and fourth, before finishing second last year, losing out to Jaguar in the teams' stakes (and the manufacturers’) on the last day of the season.

“[It’s a] really great achievement to bring the Manufacturers’ world championship title and the team's title back home for Porsche,” said team principal Florian Modlinger. “I think we can all be really proud of what we achieved.

“It was a long journey when you see how we evolved in the last years. Taking the world championship title was hard work, a lot of effort, a big journey, but I think we will only realize that later.

“We’ll enjoy the moment, but what we achieved is amazing, and I'm grateful, thankful to be part of this team, proud of the two drivers, proud of every single person in the team at home, in the factory, all the people who supported us.

Of the top three teams in the championship, TAG Heuer Porsche was the only one to have both drivers finish on the podium, But Modlinger says the team’s qualifying performance over the course of the season was the key to its success since outside factors provided too much of a variable in races.

“The big thing was qualifying, where both of the drivers did an amazing job,” he said. “The crew did an amazing job with 20 Duels participations – no team was close to us with the Duels participation. It's Antonio [Felix da Costa], Pascal and Oli [Rowland] in the top three, which was the baseline of the success.

“And then in the races this season, when you see Pascal in Sao Paulo completely upside down, big crash, then recovering and fighting us back on that side of the garage, Antonio, starting with a podium, but then having been sometimes also unlucky with safety cars and then with incidents.

“The story of the season … the quality performance was amazing. We did not collect due to different reasons. There are some things we cannot influence. If you have incidents and DNFs, none of the drivers did a mistake. It's tough to swallow, but this equals out.

“I'm not complaining about race life or bad luck. This is racing. That's part of the game. But we had also some points on our side where we left some things on the table in some races where we did not perform as we should. But that's good, because this shows that we have some potential to improve for next year.”

Next season, though, can wait. Leaving the ExCeL London, Wehrlein and the rest of the Porsche camp had only one thing on their minds.

“London is going to run out of beers tonight,” Wehrlein said. “My team really likes a good beer in the evening, so we need to get everything we can.

“I'm actually busy on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then I'm just looking forward to time off. I will switch off my phone so Florian [can’t] call me or try to reach me.”