- António Félix da Costa scores points for 7th place
- Customer team Cupra Kiro and Dan Ticktum finish in 5th
- No qualifying due to heavy rain
TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team drivers António Félix da Costa and Pascal Wehrlein finished 7th and 13th respectively in Saturday’s rain-impacted ABB FIA Formula E World Championship Tokyo race. Having started in 11th (da Costa) and 17th (Wehrlein), both drivers made up positions under challenging circumstances.
Pit Boost, Attack Mode, the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT safety car as well as a red flag interruption meant much to handle for the Porsche factory team. Earlier in the day, heavy rain had led to the cancellation of qualifying, with the grid decided by Free Practice 2 results.
The second of the highly efficient Porsche cars across the line was that of Cupra Kiro’s Dan Ticktum in 5th position. The customer team landed its best result to date with the Porsche 99X Electric WCG3. Ticktum scored his second best result in a Formula E race yet. The points contribute to the manufacturers’ standings as one of the two best-placed Porsche finishers.
Comments on the Tokyo E-Prix
Florian Modlinger, Director Factory Motorsport Formula E: “It was tough and challenging with wet conditions here in Tokyo all day, and so wet that qualifying was cancelled. The starting grid was taken from the result of FP2 in which Pascal’s 350 kW laps were compromised by red and yellow flags. We had to adapt our race strategy. António gained from 11th to 7th in the race which was good progress and also Pascal moved up from 17th to 13th. With qualifying or dry conditions we would have got more. It would have helped us more if the red flag had happened after the Pit Boost window opened. Very good job also by Dan Ticktum collecting points for P5 for the manufacturers’ championship. Now we need to focus on being competitive in hopefully dry conditions tomorrow.”
Pascal Wehrlein, Porsche factory driver (#1): “P17 wasn’t an easy position to make progress from. Visibility was poor but we managed to move forwards. Once we were in clear air we were quick, but the whole day was a bit unfortunate. I’m looking forward to tomorrow when it should be dry and a more normal day. Let’s see what we can do.”
António Félix da Costa, Porsche factory driver (#13): “It feels like we’re just ‘wrong time, wrong place’. Today we salvaged points. I had a bad lap one and went backwards but we had good pace in the wet and could go forwards. P7 was what we could do but maybe a P6 was on the cards. It feels like we’re dealing well with adversity and difficult days. It was damage limitation but we have another race tomorrow. The car has been quick here in the dry so I’m looking forward to putting on a good comeback tomorrow.”
ABB FIA Formula E World Championship – standings after 8 of 16 races
Drivers’ classification
1. Oliver Rowland (GBR), 133 points
2. António Félix da Costa (POR), 73 points
3. Taylor Barnard (GBR), 69 points
4. Pascal Wehrlein (GER), 66 points
8. Jake Dennis (GBR), 44 points
12. Dan Ticktum (GBR), 28 points
16. Nico Müller (SUI), 24 points
22. David Beckmann (GER), 0 points
Teams’ classification
1. Nissan Formula E Team (JPN), 144 points
2. TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team (GER), 139 points
3. Mahindra Racing Formula E Team (GBR), 99 points
7. Andretti Formula E (USA), 68 points
10. CUPRA KIRO (USA), 28 points
Manufacturers’ classification
1. Nissan, 225 points
2. Porsche, 179 points
3. Stellantis, 134 points
The official points’ standings can be found on the Formula E website.
Next up
The next outing for the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, Andretti Formula E and Cupra Kiro is race 9 at the Tokyo E-Prix on 18 May 2025.
