At the start of the season, Pascal Wehrlein was supreme in Formula E, with two wins, plus a second place. In India, although the German championship leader finished fourth, he mainly made headlines there with a big crash in free practice. Wehrlein was even briefly taken to hospital. After the weekend in Hyderabad, the results were suddenly less.
A failure in Cape Town and seventh place in Sao Paulo were not what the Porsche driver had hoped for beforehand, perhaps even counted on. Before the start of the ePrix in Berlin, the cause of the downturn may have been discovered. Namely, there appeared to be a crack in the monocoque of his Gen3 car, it became clear by chance on Thursday.
Not revealed
The car had been checked earlier, but the problem had not come to light then. "He did mention some feelings in the car, we could not see anything in data, we wanted to be sure and therefore the check was done here," team boss Florian Modlinger told The Race.
The monocoque goes back the manufacturer, where it will be repaired. In Berlin, Wehrlein will use Porsche's spare monocoque. That means that Porsche and Avalanche Andretti should not have any lapses during the two E-Prix's this weekend, as there is no spare monocoque left for either team.