London blamed for Formula E season finale team orders controversy

Porsche Formula E team principal Florian Modlinger has blamed London’s ExCeL Centre for being a venue where team orders are required, following a controversial season finale.

The exhibition centre in East London has hosted the last four season finales, with most featuring moments of sheer chaos and controversy.

This year’s finale almost a fortnight ago was no different, with Porsche using its driver Nico Müller and customer outfit Cupra Kiro to support Pascal Wehrlein’s pursuit of a second world title.

In response to being severely impacted by Porsche’s team tactics, Jaguar used an identical strategy, with Antonio Felix da Costa keeping Wehrlein behind in a bid to help Mitch Evans in the second race.

Both cases of team orders saw drivers purposefully go several seconds slower, with accusations of brake-checking and moving under braking having been made by Porsche and Jaguar; however, no action was taken by the stewards.

That did not stop punchy and fiery words being exchanged. After the opening race, Evans said that it felt like "even if I tried to have a real lunge [on Müller], he just would have put me in the wall."

Following the second race, where Wehrlein was crowned a two-time world champion, the German described da Costa’s driving as "one of the most unsporting and unfair things I have seen".

It was the final time Formula E will race at the ExCeL Centre due to it not being considered safe for Gen4, but Modlinger still feels the venue’s tight and twisty nature created a need for team orders and is detrimental to fair racing.

The Porsche boss wants to see future season finales at venues where team orders are not required, although much of the same could happen with Tokyo ending the campaign in 2027.

Discussing Porsche and Jaguar using team orders in London, Modlinger told RacingNews365: "Yeah, there were strategies behind, some more excessive, some less. But I come back to what I said in the press conference already [ahead of the event]. 

"If you make a season finale on such a track, this track invites you to think about such things. And for me, I would really prefer to have a season finale on a race track where the drivers can fairly battle it out on the track themselves, with no strategies, nothing involved. 

"That's what I'm fighting for, and what would be my wish. But that's my only personal opinion. As long as we have the season finale on such tracks, such things will happen. 

"If we would have London as the season opener, or in the first half of the season, you would see completely different races here."