Porsche team principal Florian Modlinger believes the tight and twisty London E-Prix circuit was deliberately chosen to host the Formula E season finale in order to “create chaos” in the championship battle.
The 2025-26 campaign ended with a controversial showdown in Britain, as Porsche and Jaguar threw everything they had to win the drivers’ and teams’ titles.
On Saturday, both Cupra Kiro’s Dan Ticktum and factory driver Nico Muller came to the assistance of Pascal Wehrlein, with Muller backing up the pack to let Porsche’s main contender run away at the front.
In response, Jaguar deployed similar tactics in Sunday’s title decider, with Antonio Felix da Costa going aggressive to hold off Wehrlein and support Mitch Evans’ slim chances of winning the championship.
Matters came to a head on lap 31 of 35, when Wehrlein came to blows with another championship rival, Andretti’s Jake Dennis, leaving both drivers out of the points. Wehrlein was hit with a three-place grid penalty for causing contact with Joel Eriksson, who spun ahead of him at the same time, but was cleared of any wrongdoing for his incident with Dennis.
While Porsche wrapped up a successful campaign in which it claimed both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ championship, only losing out on the teams’ title to Jaguar, Modlinger made his displeasure clear about London’s tricky layout creating a dramatic race when so much was at stake.
“I said this already before the race weekend. I’m not a fan of doing a season finale on such a track,” he told Motorsport.com. “If you would do this race at the beginning of the calendar, we would see different racing.
“And this track is made for a season finale to create chaos. And me, I’m not a fan of that, and I would change this.”
Florian Modlinger, Director Factory Motorsport Formula E
Photo by: Porsche
Heading into the weekend, Modlinger had warned that the final two races in London would be chaotic, as Formula E bade goodbye to the ExCel circuit ahead of its move to Brands Hatch next year.
“I have to say I have one happy eye and one sad eye because as a pure racer, I do not like chaos,” he said last Friday. “This means to have a finale on a track where you already know that you will have chaos, it is still not what I like.
“Therefore, I’m quite happy that we are going away from here. But that said, I have to say this event is very very special. It’s amazing, the fans get indoor and outdoor sections. It’s part of Formula E; it’s unique, it’s different.
“But from the chaos point of view and track characteristics, I’m not so sad [about London’s departure]. I’m looking forward to the future.”
Formula E returned to London in 2021, with the ExCel arena and the surrounding public road enabling the championship to race in the British capital again.
London served as the penultimate race of the season during its first two appearances on the calendar, before it was elevated as the final round of the campaign in 2023. Since then, the track has been host to several action-packed races, with Wehrlein famously snatching the title from Jaguar duo Evans and Nick Cassidy in 2024.
However, the ExCel’s unique indoor/outdoor layout leaves little room for modifications, making the track unsuitable for the wider and more powerful Gen4 cars that are due to debut in the 2026-27 season.
Next year will see Brands Hatch take over from ExCel as the UK round of the championship, continuing Formula E’s shift towards permanent tracks in recent years.
Asked if things would be different next year, when the Tokyo Street Circuit becomes the new season finale, Modlinger added: “When you think about the bigger cars, the Gen 4 cars, Tokyo is not far from that. So there will again be chaos.”
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