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Starting third on the grid, Wehrlein led the race by the fourth lap. He dominated the Gulavit Jakarta E-Prix from there and kept his cool in the high temperatures to secure the victory despite the best efforts of those behind him.
"It feels awesome," long-time standings leader Wehrlein said about his win. "A very good race, and qualifying was much better than the previous races. Thanks a lot to the team because the car was awesome today. I was leading almost the whole race, so it wasn't easy on energy. I knew that the guys behind had a little bit more energy, and them driving in the slipstream the whole time helped."
Third place in Jakarta was the Porsche driver's best starting position in Season 9 so far. He has started outside the top ten on four occasions this year, and even in Monaco last month could only manage to start 12th. However, he pulled a great result out of the bag in this race.
"The last couple of races, we were not where we wanted to be," the winner continued. "We did not score the points we wanted, and qualifying was a big issue. Today with P3, we qualified in the best position so far this season. The start was good, and we did the perfect thing strategy-wise. A big turnaround for us in the last couple of weeks. Thanks a lot to the team for all the hard work. Still, a long way to go.
"We were so strong in the beginning and not in the last couple of races, and finally, we bounced back."
Although Wehrlein was happy with his performance, second-place finisher Jake Dennis (Avalanche Andretti) was not. He expressed his anger at one of the Porsche driver's moves, labelling it as "ridiculous".
"The manoeuvre with Pascal was ridiculous," Dennis stated after the race. "I had to hit so much pressure to avoid hitting the back of [Wehrlein]. I don't know how he got away with that, to be honest, it's ridiculous.
"The other two guys did it perfectly. They left just enough space for one car, which is the rule. Then Pascal completely swerved up to the wall, and I had to slam the brakes halfway down the straight. He'd already committed to lifting, and at that point, you have to leave space, and he didn't. But we can't protest against them because they have a Porsche powertrain."
Wehrlein will try to make it back-to-back wins over the Jakarta double header, repeating his success over the two races in Diriyah earlier this season.
