Yahoo Autos ‘We were probably not the favorites’ – Wehrlein
Pascal Wehrlein emerged from Sunday’s Formula E finale in London as the Drivers’ champion, but coming into the weekend, he flew somewhat under the radar as the attention focused on Jaguar’s Nick Cassidy and Mitch Evans.
The TAG Heuer Porsche man was only 12 points adrift of Cassidy, then reduced that gap by winning Saturday’s race. But not being the title favorite, he knew that if he just focused on his own weekend, he would stand a good chance.
“(There was) a lot of pressure. Obviously (that) went away when I crossed the line” he said.
“We knew coming here that we had a fair chance. We were probably not the favorites, as we never performed super well on this track, so we knew we had to put everything together, and that’s exactly what we did.”
Weherlein’s championship win came as Jaguar TCS Racing’s two charges fell apart in spectacular fashion. Cassidy was hit twice – firstly by Wehrlein’s teammate Antonio Felix da Costa – while Evans missed his first Attack Mode activation, derailing any chance of finishing ahead of Wehrlein, who he’d been tied to all race.
Both Jaguar drivers had tense exchanges with their team over the radio as the pressure mounted, but while Wehrlein says he wasn’t aware of the intra-team drama with his rivals, he seemed somewhat sympathetic to what they were going through.
“Sometimes, as a driver, I think with the overview, (but) in the end, you are the person in the car,” he said. “You can also take the decisions you think would be the best for you. As an example, (on Saturday), I should have taken the Attack Mode before I passed Mitch, and I said, ‘No, I’m gonna pass him first’. So I denied taking that Attack Mode and did what I thought was right.
“So I don’t know what, let’s say ‘chaos’ went on. We are all performing on a really, really high level. Sometimes it goes your way. Sometimes it doesn’t, and I think this weekend has been favoring us.”
Wehrlein’s title – which came in a season where he led the most laps and had the equal-most pole positions – was not only his first, but also Porsche’s first in Formula E, and he says that he was “happier for the team than for myself” after finally getting the monkey off the team’s back.
“I know how much it means to everyone and how much work they put into it,” he said. I also put a lot of work into it, working on myself, working together with the team to make us better, but for sure, they are having a harder time than me.
“I’ve been with Porsche for four years and definitely, all the hard work we’ve put in together, all the effort, all the tough times we also had together, finally paid off.”
Wehrlein becomes a world champion seven years after exiting Formula 1, where he was once a Mercedes prospect. But when asked if his triumph makes up for the F1 dream not quite working out, he only had eyes on the present and the future.
“I’m not thinking too much about the past,” he insisted. “I know I can drive cars quite good. Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes life seems more fair, sometimes a bit less. But yeah, I think we are all in a very fortunate situation.”
