Porsche filled three of the top four places in the second Tokyo race of the Formula E World Championship, with the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team drivers now second and third in the standings.
TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team was in the thick of an enthralling fight for victory on Sunday, both with the factory cars and leading customer runners.
A second-place finish for reigning world champion Pascal Wehrlein boosts him to second in the drivers’ standings, with António Félix da Costa close behind in third.
The TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team is just 15 points behind the leader in the teams’ standings after nine rounds of 16.
A tricky Saturday
Saturday was something of a washout for Formula E and Porsche in particular, with heavy rain and strong winds making it impossible to run qualifying for race one at all.
Grid positions were taken from times in the similarly wet final practice session, when the programmes Porsche had been running in a non-representative session meant only 11th and 17th places on the grid for da Costa and Wehrlein.
A delayed start due to the conditions, safety car periods and brief red flag after a car stopped in an electrically unsafe state meant a broken-up race and limited chances to improve for the Porsche drivers.
Leaving his mandatory pitstop for the Pit Boost fast-charging energy top-up at least gave Wehrlein chance to briefly lead the race, but he was ultimately classified 13th.
Da Costa fared better and managed to progress to seventh, maintaining his second place in the championship.
A stellar Sunday
But Sunday was a very different story, with Wehrlein starting third and da Costa seventh.
They weren’t the only Porsche machinery running near the front, as Cupra Kiro driver Dan Ticktum claimed his first Formula E front row start, next to championship leader Oliver Rowland’s Nissan.
Ticktum and Wehrlein were Rowland’s main opposition in the first part of the race, putting the leader under huge pressure before diving for their first attack mode - which enables four-wheel drive and additional power for a limited time - on lap seven of 32.
They used it to full advantage and were up to first and second by the time the leaders had all used attack mode once, with Wehrlein then taking the lead from Ticktum mid-race.
Rowland’s strategy left him with more attack mode to use in the final stages, though, and during the second burst of attack mode deployments he was able to get back up to second behind Wehrlein.
Though the Porsche driver defended masterfully, Rowland was able to squeeze through back into the lead with his final 40 seconds of additional power.
Wehrlein and Ticktum - who had come out on top of a spectacular battle for the final podium places by then - did not give up and mounted a string of attacks for the lead even once Rowland was back in front.
But a safety car for a crash further back in the lead fight hindered further progress for the Porsche pair, and in the subsequent one-lap sprint to the finish they had to settle for second and third behind Rowland.
Those results still moved Wehrlein up to second in the drivers’ championship, and gave Ticktum his first ever podium finish in Formula E.
Da Costa was on course to be part of the podium battle too until he sustained suspension damage as the field abruptly slowed for an early full course yellow to clear debris.
He lost second in the points to Wehrlein but is still third.
Customer racing
Ticktum’s breakthrough spell in the race lead and victory fight was the headline part of the customer teams’ weekend, but far from the only highlight.
In the wet Saturday race, he had already claimed what was then his career-best Formula E result with a battling fifth place.
Andretti driver Jake Dennis was right with Wehrlein and Ticktum in the closing stages of the Sunday race as well.
He was black-flagged on Saturday amid a misunderstanding of when the pits were closed for stops during the red flag and restart, just as he moved onto a strategy that could have put him in victory contention.
But on Sunday he timed his attack mode uses perfectly to come through from 14th to fourth and then stay with the leaders, finishing right behind Wehrlein and Ticktum.
In the other Andretti and Kiro cars, Nico Mueller and David Beckmann were 12th and 18th in race one.
They came close to points in race two as they finished 11th and 13th respectively, both hurt by losing some of their attack mode usage to the full course yellow for debris.
Coming next
Formula E’s Asian swing continues swiftly as the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, Andretti and Cupra Kiro now head to China, where the Shanghai Formula 1 track hosts the next round in a fortnight.
