Jakarta E-Prix: Wehrlein ends win drought to close in on points lead

Wehrlein moved into the lead of the race early on after passing both Jake Dennis and polesitter Maximilian Gunther and then held off the duo in the closing laps to clinch his third victory of the season.

Lining up third at the start, Wehrlein made a rapid getaway from the cleaner side of the grid to immediately jump Dennis' Andretti, before challenging the Maserati MSG of Gunther for the lead on the outside of Turn 1.

Wehrlein smartly backed off on that occasion to consolidate second position but kept the pressure up on his countryman, who had dominated the weekend until that point with the fastest times in each practice and qualifying session.

On lap 4 of 26, Wehrlein sent his Porsche down the inside of Gunther to take the lead in what turned out to be the race-winning move.

For the remainder of the race, it was Dennis who emerged as Wehrlein's competitor, having recovered from dropping to fourth at the end of the opening lap behind Stoffel Vandoorne.

On lap 24, Dennis tried to make a move on the inside of Wehrlein into Turn 1 but the Porsche driver covered him off, forcing the Andretti driver to back off.

Over the final 12 laps of the race, Dennis remained within attacking distance of Wehrlein, with Gunther eventually falling behind the duo to turn it into a two-horse race for victory.

Wehrlein eventually managed to resist Dennis in a closely fought last lap of the race, taking his first victory since the Diriyah double header in January by 0.477s.

Gunther finished over a second off the leading duo in third to claim his first podium of the season, with Vandoorne ending up fourth ahead of DS Penske team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne.

Points leader Cassidy climbed from 10th on the grid to finish seventh at the flag on a day when the Jaguar-powered Envision cars lacked the pace of the frontrunners.

Cassidy was running sixth but dropped to seventh behind the Maserati of Edoardo Mortara when he took his final attack mode on lap 25.

Antonio Felix da Costa finished eighth in the second of the two factory Porsches, while Robin Frijns picked up his first points finish of the season in ninth for Abt ahead of the leading McLaren of Jake Hughes.

In a repeat of Hyderabad, Sam Bird crashed into Jaguar team-mate Mitch Evans at Turn 1, pitching the Kiwi into a spin and out of the race while battling for points in the lower regions of the top 10.

 Bird survived the incident and was running inside the points until contact with McLaren's Rene Rast sent him tumbling down to 21st.

Race results:

Cla	Driver	Team	Gap
1	Pascal Wehrlein	Porsche Team
2	Jake Dennis	Andretti Autosport	0.477
3	Maximilian Gunther	Maserati Racing	1.413
4	Stoffel Vandoorne	DS Penske	3.871
5	Jean-Eric Vergne	DS Penske	4.986
6	Edoardo Mortara	Maserati Racing	5.587
7	Nick Cassidy	Envision Racing	5.982
8	Antonio Felix da Costa	Porsche Team	20.136
9	Robin Frijns	Team Abt	21.687
10	Jake Hughes	McLaren	23.356
11	Nico Müller	Team Abt	23.792
12	René Rast	McLaren	25.002
13	Norman Nato	Nissan e.dams	25.162
14	Dan Ticktum	NIO Formula E Team	28.824
15	Lucas di Grassi	Mahindra Racing	29.495
16	Sacha Fenestraz	Nissan e.dams	30.822
17	David Beckmann	Andretti Autosport	31.079
18	Sergio Sette Camara	NIO Formula E Team	32.102
19	Roberto Merhi	Mahindra Racing	46.662
20	Sébastien Buemi	Envision Racing	1'00.081
21	Sam Bird	Jaguar Racing	1'09.072
22	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	3 Laps
View full results