'Annoying' factor hurting Wehrlein Formula E title defence
04/12/2025 02:45 AM
Pascal Wehrlein has outlined an "annoying" factor which has gone against him in every host city this season, with the "racing God" having not been in his favour. The reigning world champion enters this weekend's Miami E-Prix eighth in the Formula E drivers' title and 43 points behind Oliver Rowland, despite having shown consistently strong pace. Wehrlein has faced a setback in every race this season, two of which he started from pole position. He suffered a huge crash in São Paulo after being hit by Nick Cassidy, before a late safety car took victory in Mexico City from him. Last time out in Jeddah he faced further bad luck after being hit by Mitch Evans in the first race, only to then face a technical issue in qualifying for the second race. The run of moments out of his control has frustrated the Porsche driver, who has been massively impressed by his and the team's overall speed. "I think that the performance has been been there," Wehrlein told RacingNews365 . It has been a very annoying first four races, to be honest. Because I feel performance wise, what we have done in qualifying is even better than last year. "So the first two races, on pole position, the third race, in second place, the fourth race we would have been equally somewhere at the front if we didn't change something in the software before qualifying, which almost made me stop the car during qualifying. "So let's say the fourth qualifying you cannot consider, really. So let's say performance wise, until arriving into the race, we did everything right, and it was, like I said, even better than last year. So that is super positive. "And then the races. Sao Paulo I got taken out by Cassidy, Jeddah got taken out by Evans on lap one, Mexico was a bit unfortunate with the safety car and the late attack mode of Rowland. So it feels like none of the races were clean." Due to the run of frustrating races, Wehrlein is certain that his performances do not match the 25 points he has scored – six of which from securing two pole positions. He is looking to the "racing God" to end his rut and finally turn something in his favour. "There was always something out of our hands. So that is the annoying part, our championship standing and the points we collected so far this year doesn't mirror our performance. "We just need to continue being as good as we were or even better in qualifying, and at one point, the racing God should be more on our side than it has been so far."
