By Sebastian Kayser
Bright sunshine, 21 degrees and a fabulous day of racing at Tempelhofer Feld!
Jaguar driver Mitch Evans (28) won the seventh round of the Formula E World Championship. Before the eighth race on Sunday (3 p.m., ProSieben live), Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein (28) remains ahead in the overall standings.
One of the most prominent names in the field only finished 17th after an accident: René Rast (36). The three-time DTM champion talks to BZ about…
… the racetrack in the capital: “Berlin is a highlight. I’ve already driven eight races here. It will be a special experience starting in Berlin as a German.”
… his time in Berlin: “I arrived on Thursday, had a media day, handball training with the foxes and the first team meeting in the evening. Friday was the course inspection, 5 p.m. training and in between interviews and meetings again. Unfortunately, I usually go home immediately after the races, but I’ve sometimes stayed two days longer to see something, for example in Cape Town. But that’s usually difficult.”
Numerous visitors made the pilgrimage to the Formula E World Championship Photo: Daniel Lakomski/Jan Huebner
… the fight for recognition of the Elektro series: “The general motorsport fan has an aversion to electric. He says: ‘It has to be loud, smelly and we want to hear the engines.’ But in Formula E you never know who will win, it’s different in Formula 1. We are an extremely exciting series. The aversion has to go down and people have to become more open.”
… his private vehicle: “I still drive a conventional car because of the long distances. I don’t have the time to plan the routes to charging stations, where the stops are very long. The charging infrastructure is a big problem. Fast charging every ten kilometers would be easy. But that’s just not the case.”
… his racing team McLaren: “The biggest change was the language. At Audi there was a kind of Denglish, at McLaren there was very fast English. I had to get used to the speed of the speech. In general though, it’s the best team I’ve ever worked with. That comes close to Formula 1 level. It is a great honor to drive for McLaren.”