PIT BOOST Perfection! - How the Race was Won | 2026 Jeddah E-Prix Round 4

Round four complete, the first of the doubleheader in Jeddah and it was Pascal Wehrlein in the win. First of all, let us know in the comments what you thought of that race. It was the first pit boost race of the season. That alongside this new only one use of attack mode in pit boost races means there's a lot to get into and Albie and I will be getting very much stuck in. You don't want to miss it because this is very, very interesting, this race. But first, we should Pascal Wehrlein, great race today, talk us through it. Yeah, very nice race, got a bit tricky at the start. I think at one point I thought I was going to lead into turn one and two and then all of a sudden it got very close and a bit chaotic, so I ended up being in P4. Did the moves at the right time, that was a very enjoyable fight. Just before the pit window opened, we basically took over P1 and from there onwards, I could just drive my pace. I feel like we've saved enough energy to be happy, to be in the lead. After the pit boost, took the attack mode to open up the gap, have no one in the slipstream, which was definitely crucial for that race. From there onwards, I think I was just hoping to not get a safety car or something like an intervention to lose, especially to Edo because he still had an attack mode to do. The last couple of laps, I just managed the gaps and that was it. Very enjoyable, very nice, big thank you to the team and tomorrow we go again. A lot of that strategy and execution you mentioned there was summed up perfectly by yourself at the end of the race when you quite concisely just said that was cool. Yes, you know we went through so many scenarios before the race and then you obviously also calculate for interventions and stuff and what we felt like was going to happen was also a bit down to luck, like an intervention at the wrong time would just destroy your race completely and there's nothing you can do about it. So at one point you have to commit to a strategy, maybe go by percentage what you think, how realistic it is at which point there could be an intervention and basically we had so many scenarios prepared and went for the right one. It's great to see PitBoost back for the first time this season. It'd be interesting to know from your perspective how different it was today with one use of attack mode and PitBoost versus having two uses like we had last season. Yeah, I think that was really good. I think it's a very nice change because already the PitBoost and the attack mode is changing the field and the order quite a bit and I just feel like you kind of know a bit better where you are and where the others are and I think if it's easier for us it's also easier for the fans in front of the television so I think that is a good change and yeah for tomorrow it's definitely fine to have two attack modes and the eight minutes again but I thought as it was today it was quite nice. Well like you say you did all the hard work, all the prep beforehand to put you in a good position and you brought home today. Congratulations. Thank you. So there we have it, the first PitBoost race of the season, a different way to win a Formula E race for the first time this season. Let's get into it because there's a few things we need to uncover. Yeah, it's the first time for the new regulation with only the six minute attack mode, one activation so that obviously threw a lot of the strategy things that we learned last year into a new area so let's have a look at that. Let's start with the race winner, Pascal Wehrlein. We've got the data, we've got the insight here, talk me through the race. Okay so if you look at the race from a macro point of view you see the first half of the race sort of before the PitBoost window opens, fairly steady, everybody keeping their noses clean, not a lot happening, no one taking any early attack modes or anything like that and then you get into the PitBoost phase where you had a few early takers and a few late takers. So while we talk about PitBoost, in terms of when it was activated, out of the leaders at least, Pascal went in pretty early, pretty much as early as he could. Yeah exactly, so he was already sort of in clean air, he used a bit of energy and then he was first out of that lead group to come in and if you just look at the sort of the slope of the lines, so again for the race trace it's a very nominal flat line would be a same lap time during the anytime we go up we're adding pace to the car, we're going faster, so you can just see how different like for example the three attack modes between Pascal, Mortara and Evans was, you see that really really steep line from Beyerlein, again he's using that attack mode, that 350 kilowatt, that all-wheel drive and most importantly clean air, so in this phase once he comes out of the PitBoost, he's in clean air and he's putting down some really fast lap times and he opens up that gap that ultimately Edo was trying to catch back up but he was just sort of on his own just driving in front. Okay so those like Pascal that opted to go for the early PitBoost and then use that attack mode to kind of build that gap or get into that clean air, to put it in layman's terms for people that might be familiar with other categories of motorsport that have PitStops, it's effectively the undercut. Essentially exactly, it's just the undercut, you know you're trying to after you do your PitStop you're in clean air and you need to maximize that time when you're in clean air while other people are then coming in and doing their stop and then coming out, so you saw when Pascal actually came out he was already loads ahead because he had made good time even out of attack mode while he was in the lead, he spent energy before the PitBoost so he already gave himself a little bit of a gap, then by the time he comes in, goes back out, then takes attack mode so he's like clean sailing, so he just really really clever use of energy and timing that attack mode while he was in clean air. So you bring up a really good point there, there's something that I actually got wrong doing in my assessment doing the TalkSport radio commentary is that I thought that Pascal might leave himself a little bit short on energy come the end of the race because of the early uses of both PitBoost and attack mode but it wasn't the case, why was that? Why was there such little fighting for energy at the end? I think ultimately because everybody was using a lot of energy during attack because with a single attack mode that's the only chance you really get to get ahead, so because of that energy ended up being less of a thing than compared to like years past because everybody was using a lot during the attack mode phase and for Pascal ultimately because he had such a big gap he could just manage the energy if he needed to, he sort of slowed down, you can see that slope here just flatten off after he uses attack because he's already made that gap, he's already used it to the maximum of what he needed to do and he's just managing at the end and you know his engineer would have been giving him gaps to Mortara behind, everything's super under control. So what I wanted to ask you is attack mode, especially this new version of attack mode, which is one use of six minutes with PitBoost, how closely it was going to be kind of put together with PitBoost and how essential they would be to go together? Now that is what Pascal did, but it wasn't the case for Edo and Mitch, so they kind of didn't follow the bringing the two together. Exactly, so like in season 11 you saw most people put an attack mode along with their PitBoost and that was like quite like a normal strategy, but that was because they still had an extra one in the pocket to use. The difference this year is with the single attack mode, teams are a little bit more cunning with their sort of usage of that, so with the other two podium sitters you've got Mortara and Evans, so they actually separated the two options, they did their PitBoost in isolation and then just waited till the time was right to take the attack at the end, so they treated it more as like a right we'll get the pit stop done, get that out of the way and then treat the rest of the race as a quote-unquote normal race where they can just pick their time, use the attack mode, use the all-wheel drive, use the 350 and then push ahead, so that was the strategy the two of them employed after the PitBoost sequence. So for the likes of Mortara and Mahindra that was a really good way to make up for the issue that happened at the start of the race and still lead with the podium, but for Evans you know that was a seven place grid climb. Yeah, absolutely. That was great work. Absolutely and you saw you also saw this in Miami, okay totally different kind of race but ultimately I think they had they had pretty good race pace in the car and okay maybe not as much as the Porsche of their line but still reasonable enough pace and again timing that use of attack mode, using energy, using the right amount of energy during attack mode, again that was also what propelled him forward so no good job from the Jag. Now if you can put all of the race trace back on for every driver because sometimes in Formula E there are anomalies or sometimes there are you know the what-if case scenarios. Did you notice any from today's race of things that could have changed the game a little bit? Yeah, I did notice one thing which sort of caught me scratching my head. If you look at the early stoppers, so the ones that were coming in right at the beginning of the PitBoost sequence and if we just zoom in there, what you'll see here is that you'll see the first cars to come in, you see Taylor Barnard, Jake Dennis, Felix da Costa and Dan Tichtum coming in. So all four of them in that group came in at the same time. Importantly, Dennis, da Costa and Tichtum all took their attack mode right away on the out lap. Taylor Barnard and Penske chose not to do that and because of that Taylor actually took it like the next lap so he got overtaken by those three. For me, this felt a little bit like a lost opportunity because if Taylor Barnard takes it on the out lap, same as the other three cars, he'll be at the front of that group of first stoppers and if you see where they end up coming, so this is Pascal Wehrlein, one of the late stoppers. He comes back out and also takes attack mode on his out lap but at this time, he's all of six, seven tenths to Jake Dennis. If Taylor had taken it early, he would have been in that gap and there's definitely a chance if he pushed a little bit harder, he would have been pretty much right where Pascal was when Pascal comes out of the pits. If that happens, it's a totally different race because all of a sudden, Pascal's under pressure even if it's for half a lap and then he has to decide whether he also takes attack and it's a completely different race. For me, definitely a head-scratching one and maybe a little bit of performance left on the table. That's a really interesting one because Taylor and Diaz-Penske potentially strategize themselves out of the podium there and like you say, when Edo was chasing down Pascal, it was six seconds, five seconds, four seconds. Pascal had done enough. If Taylor's right on his tail at that point, that completely changes it. Absolutely. As we always say, FE is such a game of small margins and this is just an example of that. It's just a small little decision, one lap later, one lap earlier, but it'll make or break a race. Yes, that's a really good insight there and a great observation. If you had any observations, of course, let us know in the comments. Now, talking of comments, we've got a few fan questions we're going to go into. The first one is from Daniel. He said, oh, this is a tricky question, but I think we'll give it a good go. Seems like in recent years, world champion, reigning world champions struggle. In the following year, why do we think that is? God, that is not an easy question. That is not an easy question. I guess speaking from personal experience, when I won the championship with Nick in Season 7, Season 8 was, again, you've got the champion moniker, but ultimately, there's so many other variables going on. That year in Season 8, we were racing our own teammate and overall, the team had good performance. Again, we're working as a team to try to push the whole team's championship, driver's championship, both. There's just some small things here or there that sometimes don't go necessarily your way, but it's so many variables. It's always difficult. I think from a mental point of view, you always have a little bit more pressure. Everyone's chasing you, especially if the team's doing well. Again, you've got everyone else looking at you. You're the target. They're looking at everything you do and try to copy that, but there's too many variables. I wouldn't want to say it's just this one thing or this one thing, why champions struggle. Ultimately, Ollie's had a poor start to the year based on his own high standards, but I have no doubt that he can rebound from that and have a good remaining part of the year. He's a quality driver. I don't expect this trend to go on forever. It could be tomorrow. It's an age-old thing, isn't it, that I think it's not just Formula E or even motorsport specific. It's across different sports. When you are the reigning champ, everybody has a target to aim to. You don't have a target. All you do is you're trying to match yourself or your own version of yourself, which is like without having the aim, how do you even think to try and shoot at a target? You've got nothing to aim at. There's that thing, but also it's always harder to lead than it is to chase, I think. Formula E is a great example of that, especially because of how tight the margins are and how competitive it is. Could it be harder? It's so difficult, but great question though. Sorry, we couldn't answer it any better. That is the answer, isn't it? I think so. We gave it a good go. One more question. This is from lewis8552. Again, there's a lot of good insight in these questions. When most braking is done by regen versus mechanical braking, how do teams set up for qualifying in the race? I'm going to do a better job on this one than the last question. In qualifying, when you're just looking for outright pace and performance, you will maximize the regen and the mechanical brakes. You're just pushing that as hard as possible and figuring out which to use more of to give you the maximum performance. The interesting thing is, because you're no longer limited by energy in qualifying, things like on the outlap, on the inlap, if you want to do things to manage tire temperature, for example, the drivers will have a switch on the steering wheel and they'll put more of the braking on the mechanical brakes. That way, it heats up the brake, heats up the wheel, and it ultimately heats up the tire. You'll see them do that on outlaps and build laps. Then, for example, at the end of a qualifying group, you have quite a big brake before the duel. Again, you want to maximize that temperature. Again, on the inlap, they can also use this because they're not worried about energy. They can use some of that energy to use the mechanical brakes, bring some temperature. That's one aspect of qualifying that's different than the race because in the race, everything's about efficiency. You need to maximize the amount of energy that you regen and recuperate. In the race, the difference would be I'm going to try to balance my braking so that I'm using more of the rear power unit, for example, than the front power unit because the rear power unit is not the same across all the teams. That's the manufacturer-bespoke one. That is always going to have a little bit higher efficiency than the front motor. You'll see the teams just wind the brake bias more to the rear and just see how much they can handle on the rear axle. That's why a lot of times in the race, the rear tires get hot and then the car balance goes a little bit away because they're just trying to regen so much more rearward because they know there's an efficiency gain by doing that. That's the difference between quality and race is just an efficiency difference. That was a great answer and a great question. Make sure to keep those questions coming in to the comments. We'll make sure we try and dive into them in the rest of these videos. That is round four complete. That's how round four was won. We've got one more. We've got one more. Stay tuned to the Formula YouTube channel to see how round five was won.