At Shanghai on Saturday Porsche failed to score a point in a Formula E race for the first time since Misano last April, leaving its reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein even further behind runaway points leader Oliver Rowland.
But perhaps more damaging might be the recriminations between its drivers after a confused race that brought radio irritation between Antonio Felix da Costa and Wehrlein.
The non-score for both drivers leaves Wehrlein 87 points behind Rowland with six races remaining, a gap which now feels realistically uncatchable for the current champion to have any chance of retaining his title.
Wehrlein, who started from third position on the grid, started strongly by briefly leading the race but dropped back into the pack and in close company with an ascending Da Costa who rose from a lowly 17th on the grid after his qualifying was compromised by a reported lack of grip and not being able to hook-up his sectors.
There were several flashpoints between the two fighting Porsche drivers in and around lap 11, just before the pitstop window opened in the 29-lap race. The TV cameras missed the action but Wehrlein reported to his engineer Fabrice Roussel that "Antonio just hit me".
Da Costa responded by informing his engineer Marius Meier-Diedrich that it was "the second time he [Wehrlein] put me in the grass, man, either you have to tell him something or we have to…"
Then there was a period in the second attack mode, which the pair took together, when Da Costa bemoaned what appeared to be a lack of cooperation from his team-mate.
"Yeah he's already in front, I was blocked in the road by my team-mate, nothing I could do," he reported.
Then came a direct request from Da Costa, who said, "tell him we don't need to save anymore, he needs to be on the gearbox of the car in front. He's lifting early!"
Da Costa subsequently got shuffled back to outside the points, feeling as though he got pushed off the track twice by Sebastien Buemi's Envision Jaguar.
Wehrlein also dropped back as others had more attack mode time and pace left at the end, leaving the pair only 12th and 13th at the flag.
Speaking to The Race after today's race Porsche Director of Factory Motorsport for Formula E, Florian Modlinger said that "how our two cars interacted, we got feedback from the two drivers, I have not seen anything on TV. We will now analyse data and also the onboard cameras and then draw the correct conclusions."
The wider question on how Porsche's race panned out so disappointingly was largely put down to the team not expecting to lose so many places at the beginning of the race with Wehrlein.
That meant, according to Modlinger "that we had to try something different and deviate from our plan.
"In addition, we didn't have the pace. We destroyed our front tyres too early with graining and then couldn't follow in traffic. This means we have to do something different and that was the approach but clearly [we were] not quick enough."
While Da Costa and Wehrlein took their attack mode together, their strategies were split on the Pit Boost stops with Wehrlein pitting early (lap 13) and Wehrlein taking his later (lap 17).
"You could also see that virtually there was a good job done there," added Modlinger.
"We had both cars in the leading group, but clearly afterwards when the others had attack mode left and we had not a natural pace, we were swallowed up again, and that's not satisfying."
Ticktum flies the Porsche flag - but ends up disappointed
Porsche's highest scoring car was the Cupra Kiro machine of Dan Ticktum - who rose from a disappointing 21st on the grid, after overcooking his qualifying lap, to a fourth-place finish.
But there was an air of disappointment too for Ticktum, as he looked on for second until an attack from Jean-Eric Vergne at the final chicane on the last lap.
"JEV made an opportunistic move, a bit on the aggressive side in my opinion," Ticktum told The Race.
"If it was another driver, it's very likely he could have crashed, but I gave him room. Maybe too much.
"Maybe I would have preferred to have crashed, to be honest, rather than just open the door for people like that.
"It's what it is. Last to fourth is not exactly terrible, but it should have been a podium that one."
Ticktum generally praised his team's strategy which was a big initial energy save before pulling a pace pin to make up positions with 15 laps to go. It worked brilliantly as his late last attack mode enabled him to rise to third place, which he looked like holding to reprise his maiden Tokyo E-Prix result earlier this month, before Vergne's lunge intervened.
But Ticktum believed that his last two minutes of the All-Wheel-Drive 350kW power was actually used "slightly too late" as he believed he "lost the pack in that mid-phase of the race, just before the pit boost".
"That was not ideal, but not the end of the world as I seem to be very good at pulling off this save strategy," he added.
Ticktum has been proficient in big energy saving starts to races and was unlucky not to reap the rewards of a similar strategy at Homestead in April. On that occasion he was denied through a red flag which ruined his work in gaining a 4-5% energy advantage on his rivals.
"To build up a 5% deficit or a margin on the whole field in eight laps is quite a useful thing to be able to do," he added.
"I think the team pretty much nailed it today, and I pretty much nailed it but I'm just very disappointed to not get the podium."
