The Diriyah Street Circuit in Saudi Arabia was the venue of the first back-to-back races in the 2023 Formula-E calendar. The street circuit stretches along the historic desert town walls of this UNESCO World Heritage site and illuminated with the latest LED technology, the Diriyah night race showcased frenetic racing all weekend.
In the first of the two races, the #94 Porsche 99X Electric Gen3 driven by Pascal Wehrlein of Germany, started the race on P5. Keeping his nose clean, Pascal bided time, then on Lap 30 with the race leader in sight, Wehrlein swept past Sam Bird for the lead and took the checkered flag for his second career win in Formula-E.
In Round 3, Wehrlein, again starting on P5, went on the attack as early as the first lap. The #94 Porsche battled for position early on, then on Lap 17, Pascal went on to pass Rene Rast to grab P1. The #94 Porsche 99X Electric Gen3 was never threatened. Wehrlein crossed the finish line 1.2 seconds ahead of his rivals.
In a statement, Porsche Motorsport Vice President Thomas Laudenbach said: “That was a fantastic weekend. The entire team’s hard work is finally being rewarded. I’m very proud of everyone on the squad. We’ve done our homework, now we need to stay focused. The season is still long and we know how tough the competition is in this world championship. But after this success, it’s now time to
celebrate.”
Florian Modlinger, Director Factory Motorsport Formula E added: “A sensational weekend for Porsche with two wins for the Porsche 99X Electric Gen3. We can be proud of our development team in Weissach and of our team at the track, which once again executed our strategy perfectly today. We also made progress in qualifying in Diriyah. Pascal secured a much better starting position today with P5 – an advantage he made perfect use of. He got off to a great start, then meticulously fought his way up the order to ultimately take the lead and not let it go.”
Asked about his weekend, Pascal Wehrlein had this to say: “I’ll never forget this weekend. Two wins are an unbelievable success. The whole team gave a fantastic performance over the weekend. Everybody worked hard for this achievement and I’m incredibly proud of the team. Today we had blistering race pace and a perfect strategy. We used the attack mode at exactly the right time. That was a decisive
advantage. When I won on Friday I had to overtake more cars, but today’s race was even more difficult. You could see that our rivals were catching up. That means we can’t rest on our laurels either.”
With his two wins in Saudi Arabia, Wehrlein now leads the drivers’ standings with a 68-point tally and is expected to pile up more points in the coming races.
Next up for the Tag Heuer Porsche Formula E team, will be the 2023 Greenko Hyderabad e-prix on February 11. This will be the very first Formula E race in India.
