The TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team retained its championship lead through an eventful Monaco E-Prix weekend, in which António Félix da Costa recovered from a heavy crash in the Saturday race to almost take a podium finish in race two.
Though the team was unable to secure the third-place finish on this occasion, da Costa’s fourth position and two points finishes for his reigning champion team-mate Pascal Wehrlein keeps Porsche in a strong position in the championship fights.
The story of the races
Formula E’s race on the famed Monaco Grand Prix street circuit is always a calendar highlight, and in 2025 for the first time in series history the event was a double-header with races on both Saturday and Sunday.
Wehrlein qualified his Porsche 99X Electric fifth and ran there in the early stages, but sadly his team-mate da Costa’s race was brief.
While making quick progress towards the top 10 from 15th on the grid he ran out of space at the final corner as he tried to pass David Beckmann and Edoardo Mortara and had a heavy impact with the barriers.
Monaco was the second event where Formula E’s exciting new Pit Boost fast-charging system was being used, with all cars taking a mandatory pitstop for a 10% energy increase (3.85kWh) delivered in just over 30 seconds.
The new technology has made a largely smooth debut but a small issue with the fixture of the charging device caused Wehrlein’s car to briefly shut down during his pitstop.
Having made his way up to third place, the slightly slow pitstop dropped him to eighth, but he was able to charge back up to sixth position in the closing laps.
An early morning deluge on Sunday led to one of the very few wet race days in Formula E history, with conditions in qualifying particularly sodden.
The Porsche team-mates made sensible progress through qualifying and da Costa rewarded his crew for their hard work repairing his car by reaching the duels stage and earning sixth on the grid, while Wehrlein started 10th.
Though conditions had improved by race time and the track continued to dry throughout, it was still an extremely treacherous surface.
The two Porsche drivers kept things safe during the fraught first half of the race as many others headed for the barriers, then used late attack mode deployments to make progress up the order.
While Wehrlein was held back in seventh place by Jean-Eric Vergne, Da Costa brought himself into the podium fight and spent the final laps all over the back of Nick Cassidy’s Jaguar.
He ultimately had to settle for fourth, but was just two tenths of a second away from a place on the Monte Carlo podium.
Those results keep Da Costa and Wehrlein second and third in the drivers’ championship and ensure the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team remains first in the teams’ standings.
Customer racing
The potency of the Porsche 99X Electric was also demonstrated by its customer teams Andretti and Cupra Kiro, which achieved a podium finish and a major qualifying breakthrough respectively in Monaco.
The qualifying highlight came courtesy of Kiro driver Dan Ticktum, whose third place on the Saturday grid was his best result in Formula E yet.
He lost ground during the pitstop and attack mode phases of the race but still secured his fourth points finish of the season in seventh, with team-mate Beckmann 17th after a penalty for a pitstop procedure infringement.
Ticktum again starred in qualifying with seventh on the grid in Sunday’s sodden conditions, though early incidents meant he was unable to score points in the second race.
Porsche’s podium finish came courtesy of Andretti driver Jake Dennis, who overcame a time penalty to secure third in race one.
His team-mate Nico Müller could have done even better, though. An early puncture looked like a terrible blow, but put him in the perfect place on track to dive in for his Pit Boost stop just as a full course yellow was called.
This gave him the chance to vault to the front as others pitted in normal racing conditions later on.
Unfortunately a problem with the Pit Boost equipment meant he had inadequate charge in his car in the closing laps and compromised his pace, though he still finished fifth.
Müller then crashed in the wet race two, but Dennis brought Porsche and Andretti more points with ninth place.
A busy month ahead
May is pivotal for the Formula E title fight, with no fewer than three double-header events meaning six races in very quick succession. It’s off to Japan next and the series’ Tokyo street track in a fortnight.
