Jaguar’s Evans took victory in the first of two races this weekend at the Shanghai International Circuit, having taken the lead on the final lap from Wehrlein with a daring move around the outside of Turn 1.
Wehrlein had headed the field for the final stages of the race having taken the lead after going side-by-side with Evans through the tight final sequence of corners used on the shorter circuit layout.
Having cut across the penultimate bend to move ahead, both Wehrlein and Evans were investigated by stewards post-race, who decided several hours later that no further action was necessary having spoken to both drivers and studied replays.
But Evans was left shocked that no penalty was handed to Wehrlein, who he believes had a lasting advantage in the incident.
“For me, it was clear he was going to get a penalty, he even admitted to me that he gained an advantage, I gave him space,” Evans told Autosport.
“But they [the stewards] didn’t give it to him in the end. I then had to use energy to pass him again so I’m quite shocked that he didn’t get a penalty for it.
“I just thought the race director or stewards would say give the position back [during the race], I think that was super clear from my perspective and even more so after I’ve seen a lot of footage.
“I’m still a bit annoyed, he deserves a penalty for that, he had a lasting advantage.”
Evans also admitted that had he been unable to pass Wehrlein on the final lap he “would be kicking off big time” in order to overturn the result.
Wehrlein believes it was impossible to say who had been ahead approaching the corner as the pair ran side-by-side, and that cutting across the grass was the only option to avoid a collision.
“From my view, I didn’t have enough space, I had to avoid a collision. If I kept trying to make the corner we would have just crashed,” said Wehrlein.
“The difficulty is trying to find out who was ahead because we were both side-by-side. So did I overtake him off-track? Very doubtful because maybe even I was ahead. I did not overtake him being behind him.”
While Wehrlein escaped punishment, his Porsche team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa was handed a five-second penalty for forcing Jean-Eric Vergne off track, which demoted the Portuguese driver from fifth to outside the points.
