Pascal Wehrelin made it back-to-back victories in Diriyah after coming through the field again to secure victory and take the lead in the Championship.
Once again the Porsche powertrain’s efficiency was key to Wehrelin’s win, as the German driver had 3% more energy than the rest of the pack by the halfway point.
When Porsche saw they had a huge advantage over the rest of the Grid, Wehrelin mounted his charge from fourth place to take the lead.
First up he dispatched pole sitter Jake Hughes to move into thrid place, then he latched onto the back of Mitch Evans to pass to move into second place.
Finally, he managed to pass Rene Rast in the McLaren on lap 17 with the use of Attack Mode.
From that point on the win never looked in doubt as he pulled away from Rast to take his final Attack Mode and maintain the lead of the race.
Wehrlein had to survive a late safety car with Jake Dennis still having to take three minutes of Attack Mode to challenge the Porsche driver in the remaining lap.
However, Dennis was unable to find a way through Wehrlein and had to settle for second place.
At the start of the race, Mitch Evans nicked the lead of the race from Jake Hughes at Turn 18 off the start.
On Lap 9 of 40 lap race, Evans took the first Attack Mode of the leading bunch, which proved costly as Rene Rast was able to overcut him and take the lead of the race.
Rast went from third to first after taking his Attack Mode on lap 12. Hughes fell back to third after taking his Attack Mode on lap 11 and was not able to overcut Evans.
At the halfway stage, the usable energy figures were shown on screen and that’s when Wehrlein and Sam Bird who had 4% more usable energy than the rest of the field started their attacks.
On lap 23 Dennis made his way through the field to move up to second place after passing Evans, and Rast.
Bird moved into third on lap 26 passing his teammate Evans. However, Bird was yet to take an Attack Mode at this stage of the race, which would hamper him as on lap 27 the safety car was called out to recover Nico Mueller’s ABT after he locked up and hit the wall at Turn 18.
After the restart, Dennis and Bird took their remaining Attack Modes. Dennis maintained second, but Bird fell behind Rast.
Bird had 3% more energy than Rast, but the British driver locked up on lap 35 and lost a lot of time in his pursuit for third.
The Jaguar driver was unable to recover from that mistake and had to settle for fourth place behind Rene Rast who secured his first podium for McLaren.
Hughes was pushed over the line by Evans as the McLaren driver run out of energy to finish in fifth.
Sebastien Buemi was able to steal sixth from Evans while he was pushing Hughes over the line.
Sacha Fenestraz finished in eighth for Nissan and Edoardo Mortara came home in ninth for Maserati.
Dan Tiktum took the final point in tenth place for NIO 333.
