Muller scores maiden win in Porsche’s home race

Nico Muller pulled off a strategic masterclass in Saturday’s Berlin E-Prix to deliver Porsche a home victory in Formula E.

Starting sixth on the grid, Muller dropped back in the early stages to focus on energy saving, before working his way back through the field.

With the pack running closely throughout, the Swiss was able to wrestle his way back to the top five before taking full advantage of the attack mode to seize the lead.

It marked Muller’s maiden Formula E win in five seasons, helping Porsche retain control of both the teams’ and the manufacturers’ standings. Nick Cassidy finished second for Citroen, with reigning champion Oliver Rowland completing the podium for Nissan e.Dams.

The opening race of the Berlin double-header followed a familiar pack-style pattern, with the entire grid covered by just 10 seconds in the opening dozen laps.

Polesitter Edoardo Mortara, Rowland, Maximilian Guenther and Cassidy all enjoyed stints at the front, before Lucas di Grassi and Zane Maloney surged to the front in the two Lola Abt cars.

Meanwhile, Porsche and Jaguar drivers adopted a completely different strategy in the opening phase of the race, dropping to the lower regions of the top 10 to conserve energy.

Lola’s stranglehold at the front ended on lap 17, when both Cassidy and Rowland surged past Maloney to grab first and second positions. Mortara soon joined them at the front of the field, setting up a three-way fight at around the midway point of the race.

Cassidy was the first frontrunner to complete his pit boost stop, on lap 21, with Mortara following him just a lap later and Rowland delaying his mandatory fast recharge until lap 26.

Rowland’s strategy put him at the front of the field when the pitstops had shaken out, with Cassidy passing Mortara to grab second position.

By this stage, Muller had climbed his way up to fourth place, holding an energy advantage of around 3% over the leaders.

The 34-year-old was the first driver to arm the attack mode and took full advantage of the 350kW mode to grab the lead and build a buffer of four seconds. This advantage proved too large for his rivals to overcome, with Muller going on to claim his maiden win by an extended margin of 4.7s.

Cassidy fell into the clutches of Rowland in the final phase of the race, but held on to second to claim his third podium of the season. Rowland, on the other hand, fended off a late attack from Mortara to bag his fourth podium in seven races.

Polesitter Mortara struggled for efficiency for much of the race, but took over the lead of the championship with Porsche rival Pascal Wehrlein sustaining a front-right puncture and finishing 19th.

Edoardo Mortara, Mahindra Racing

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

Andretti’s Jake Dennis and Jaguar driver Mitch Evans replicated Muller’s strategy to finish fifth and sixth, ahead of the sole-surviving Cupra Kiro car of Pepe Marti.

The top 10 was completed by Taylor Barnard (DS Penske), Nyck de Vries (Mahindra) and Antonio Felix da Costa (Jaguar).

The two Lola cars were unable to maintain their pace in the second half of the race, with Maloney slipping to 15th and di Grassi only managing 17th.

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