Pascal Wehrlein’s Formula E championship aspirations took another hit during the 2025 Monaco E-Prix double-header, as title rival Oliver Rowland extended his advantage in the drivers’ standings with a commanding victory in Race 1.
The Porsche driver managed to secure sixth and seventh place finishes across the two races on the streets of Monte Carlo, but found himself unable to match the pace of championship leader Rowland, who continues to establish himself as the man to beat in the 2025 season.
Early struggles on Saturday
In Saturday’s opening race, Wehrlein showed glimpses of his fighting spirit, rising to fifth place early on after overtaking Jake Dennis in what has become an annual contentious battle between the two drivers around the tight Monaco circuit.
However, as the race developed, Wehrlein couldn’t maintain his forward momentum. A robust move on Taylor Barnard at the hairpin late in the race pushed the McLaren driver towards the barrier, although Barnard managed to reverse out of danger without making contact. The incident dropped Barnard from podium contention down to 17th place.
While Rowland took a commanding victory ahead of Nyck de Vries and Jake Dennis, Wehrlein had to settle for sixth place, allowing his championship rival to further strengthen his position at the top of the standings.
The challenge of wet conditions
Day two of the 2025 Monaco E-Prix presented different challenges with wet conditions greeting the drivers. Wehrlein struggled to find pace in his Porsche early on, taking his first Attack Mode later than most competitors. By mid-race, the German was languishing in 16th position, putting pressure on Mitch Evans’ Jaguar.
“Today we struggled quite a bit in the wet,” Wehrlein admitted to Pit Debrief after the 2025 Monaco E-Prix. “The only time we had pace was when the track was drying out again towards the end of the race.”
As conditions improved, Wehrlein demonstrated impressive recovery drive skills. He executed a clever switchback manoeuvre on Norman Nato’s Nissan and capitalised on contact between Evans and Jake Hughes to power past them up the hill.
“At one point I was almost lost, and then I went back to P7,” Wehrlein reflected. “But obviously P7 is a good race.”
✨ Glitz, 🪩 glamour and ⚕️ a healthy points score – check out our #MonacoEPrix video recap here. ⏬ pic.twitter.com/YXQ5XrTTtw
— TAG Heuer Porsche FE Team (@PorscheFormulaE) May 5, 2025
The significance of Attack Mode
When questioned about his late deployment of Attack Mode in Race 2, Wehrlein revealed this was part of a deliberate strategy.
“I think that’s what you want to do. In case of a safety car and so on, you still want to have it quite late into the race,” he explained. “But you never know when is the best timing.”
While Wehrlein was implementing cautious tactics, race winner Sebastien Buemi was putting on a masterclass at the front. The Swiss driver claimed his first victory in five years, crossing the line almost five seconds ahead of Rowland, with Nick Cassidy completing the podium.
An outlook on the championship after the 2025 Monaco E-Prix
With both 2025 Monaco E-Prix races now complete, Wehrlein finds himself in an increasingly challenging position in the championship fight. Rowland’s consistent front-running performances have established the Nissan driver as the clear favourite as the season progresses.
Wehrlein acknowledged the growing gap but pointed to some positives for Porsche in the teams’ championship.
“Luckily on the Nissan side they have only one driver which is scoring a lot of points. So that helps our team championship,” Wehrlein noted. “But obviously on the driver championship we are losing a bit of ground.”
The German was candid about the current performance gap between Porsche and Nissan, saying, “Oliver and the Nissan just seem to be very strong on every track so far. And they are able to be at the front all the time. And for us, it’s a bit more up and down.”
With both Wehrlein and teammate António Félix da Costa finishing in the points in Race 2, Porsche maintains a strong position in the teams’ championship, but Wehrlein’s individual title hopes are gradually slipping away.
The Formula E championship now heads to Tokyo for the next round, where Wehrlein will need to find improved performance if he hopes to close the gap to the seemingly unstoppable Rowland.
“I think we are somewhere lacking something on the tyres,” Wehrlein concluded, identifying a key area for improvement before the Japanese race weekend. “In the warm-up we treated tyres that we cannot make them work straight out of the box.”
Whether Porsche can address these issues and return to winning ways in Tokyo remains to be seen, but for now, Rowland and Nissan appear to have established themselves as the combination to beat in Formula E’s 2025 season.
