Two podiums at the Berlin E-Prix double header ensured Porsche heads to the Formula E season finale in London with the lead of the manufacturers’ and teams' championships.
A fifth podium finish of the season for Pascal Wehrlein and a runner-up finish for Andretti driver Jake Dennis in the second race means Porsche has a solid lead in both fights with one round remaining.
Though his drivers' championship title defence is now over, TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team driver Wehrlein scored a third runner-up finish of the season in the opening Berlin Tempelhof race.
A day later, he took his third pole position of 2024-25 - equalling his best haul from a single campaign.
The story of the races
From ninth on the grid on a wet track, Wehrlein had worked his way into the lead pack in the opening part of race one.
Strong form meant he was a contender for victory in the closing stages after a late safety car period, headed by the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT safety car.
Taking attack mode for the second time on lap 35 of the eventual 41-lap race, Wehrlein quickly regained the second place he'd held before his activation.
He set off after race leader Mitch Evans, posting the fastest lap of the race in the process and earning him and the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team an extra point.
Wehrlein ultimately came up less than half a second short of victory, though might have had a better shot at the win had he not been baulked on the late restart by Nissan stand-in Sergio Sette Camara.
It nevertheless marked Wehrlein's first podium at his home Formula E race.
Team-mate António Félix da Costa had been a frontrunner throughout, too, but made contact with Maserati's Jake Hughes during a frantic first few laps after the safety car restart while in attack mode.
He crossed the line third, but was handed a five-second penalty for that contact post-race and dropped to 10th in the final classification.
Race two promised more chances of silverware for both factory Porsche drivers, with Wehrlein starting from pole and da Costa lining up third.
The signs were encouraging early in the race as they diced with the customer Cupra Kiro car of Dan Ticktum for the lead, remaining in the fight through the middle phase of another peloton-style race.
But Wehrlein's race went awry late on around the time of the attack mode activations, as he was pushed down the order after opting to take a two-minute activation at first.
After a longer six-minute second deployment, he ultimately finished 16th.
Da Costa finished less than five seconds shy of the podium places but that translated to a ninth-place finish, such was the frantic nature of race two.
Their results nevertheless helped the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team to extend its lead over Nissan in the teams' championship to 22 points with just two races of the 2024-25 season to go.
The manufacturers' championship battle remains finely poised but is also in Porsche's favour, as it will start the London ExCeL weekend with a five-point lead.
Customer racing
While victory eluded Porsche power in both Berlin races, the potency of the Porsche 99X Electric package was underlined by the performances of customer teams Andretti and Cupra Kiro too.
A technical issue before the start restricted Jake Dennis to running for a matter of metres before retiring from race one, but he bounced back in excellent fashion to secure his second podium of the season for Andretti in race two.
The 2022-23 champion ghosted his way through the order with an astute drive from 16th on the grid to runner-up spot, his best result of the campaign.
Team-mate Nico Mueller also secured his best starting spot of the season - fifth - and finished eighth, matching his result from a day earlier.
However, he received a post-race penalty after the second race, which dropped him to 17th place.
The Cupra Kiro team's promise went largely unrewarded. Ticktum qualified a magnificent second, between Wehrlein and da Costa, on Sunday, and both he and team-mate David Beckmann spent spells in the lead of race two.
But they both ultimately finished outside the points, Ticktum in 14th and Beckmann two places further back in 16th.
Ticktum had got points on the board earlier in race one, coming through a busy race - which Beckmann was eliminated from after being hit by Sette Camara - in ninth place.
Coming next
Two titles are on the line as Porsche, Andretti and Kiro prepare to conclude the 2024-25 season in London in two weeks' time on the hybrid indoor/outdoor ExCeL circuit.
