Pascal Wehrlein, TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team , 1st position,
Porsche get their second win of the weekend through Pascal Wehrlein, with Jake Dennis taking second and Rene Rast completing the podium.
The dominant Porsche package showed its strength once again with the pair who took the top steps of the podium yesterday having a similarly dominant performance today.
Pole sitter Jake Hughes had a difficult race, being overtaken into the first corner by Evans who started next to him and ending up being pushed over the finish line by the Kiwi at the end of the race.
All cars made it clean through the first turn, with Mitch Evans getting a fantastic run down the inside of Jake Hughes to take the lead.
Edoardo Mortara also had a brilliant start, making up two positions on the first lap and up into fifth.
Much like yesterday’s race, the opening stages were fairly subdued as the racing line cleaned up, giving more grip to the drivers.
Evans was the first of the front runners to take attack mode for three minutes, losing two positions in the process.
McLaren retaliated with the pole sitter taking attack on the next lap, also losing two places. His teammate managed to get through the attack loops without losing positions and held the lead of the race.
The efficiency of the Porsche Power train showed again with Pascal Wehrlein making it into the podium positions very quickly and already having 2% more energy than the cars around him
Rast wasn’t so lucky the second time around with his attack deployment, losing the lead to yesterday’s winner Wehrlein.
Jake Dennis had a similar climb up the grid as yesterday’s race, making his way up to P2 by lap 26 without taking a single second of attack mode, saving it all to take a push at Wehrlein ahead.
The safety car was brought out by Muller on lap 28, finding the wall in his ABT in another difficult race for the team. The German driver locked his wheels attempting an overtake and lost control of his car.
Bird went into the safety car period with all four minutes of his attack mode remaining and 2% more energy than Wehrlein and Dennis in front.
When the safety car came in on lap 30, Both Dennis and Bird took their attack mode together. Dennis was able to retain P2 on the road while Bird dropped down to P4 leaving him to chase Rast with 3% more energy.
Bird did get ahead of Rast, losing the place almost as quickly as he got it, going wide and losing position. The Briton was nursing a slightly damaged front wing after a first-lap collision.
While Rast and Bird were fighting for the final podium position, Dennis opened up a gap, locking eyes on Wehrlein ahead. However, the Briton seemed to have slightly less race pace than he did in Round 2 and struggled to take the battle to the Porsche.
One lap was added to the end of the race making up for the safety car period. Several cars struggled with energy management on the last lap with several struggling to make it over the line come the end.
Stoffel Vandoorne was running in the points before dropping two places on the final lap and not taking his final attack mode. The reigning champion was given a post-race, converted drive-through penalty resulting in a 24-second drop for the Belgian.
Maserati earned their first points of the season through Edoardo Mortara who finished the race in ninth.
After qualifying outside of the points positions, NIO’s Dan Ticktum who was sceptical about his ability to get points came home tenth to claim a point for the team.
Formula E action returns in a fortnight with Round 4 in Hyderabad.
Keyword: Wehrlein does the double in Diriyah