Rounds 8 and 9 of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship occurred over the past weekend, and it was a chaotic 48 hours for all teams and drivers.
Round 8
Before the race even began, there was chaos as the qualifying session was cancelled due to the weather conditions. FP2 was able to take part, however, and the results from that session would be qualifying. This resulted in Oliver Rowland starting from pole ahead of Edoardo Mortara and Norman Nato.
The race began with a standing start after a few laps behind the safety car and a 10-minute delay. Barnard immediately went from P4 to P3, with multiple drivers taking attack mode at the start, such as Buemi, Da Costa and Evans. Nato fell down from P3 to P6. With Buemi’s attack mode, he managed to make it up to P2 by lap 6. However, Buemi went wide further on, which resulted in Edoardo Mortara retaking P2. Vandoorne was the first driver to take attack mode and immediately took advantage of it.
Suddenly, Guenther had a RED car, and a red flag was called to stop the race. Jake Dennis and Andretti had a similar issue in Sao Paulo. The car then switched to green, but Guenther was still out. Vandoorne ended up being the biggest gainer from this red flag, as he was a full pit-boost pit stop ahead of everyone else.
Once cars went back onto the track, De Vries, Evans and Dennis all had their pit boost windows open, with Jake Dennis opting to take his pit stop prior to the race start. This would result, however, in the Andretti driver receiving the black flag and being disqualified from the race as the pit lane was closed.
More drivers took attack mode after the restart, including Rowland, while others opted to take their pit boost after the restart, including Barnard, De Vries, Nato and Evans. It emerged from here that Evans was retiring his car due to a collision with De Vries. Drivers emerging from their pit boost were all calm until Buemi was jumped by the Mahindra car of Mortara.
The race leader, Stoffel Vandoorne, then ended up spinning and hitting the wall before taking his final attack mode. Rowland took his second attack mode near the end of the race and retook P2 from Taylor Barnard. Rowland was unable to take P1 away from Stoffel Vandoorne as he took his first win since 2022 and his first win with Maserati MSG Racing! Oliver Rowland finished P2 and Taylor Barnard P3!
Sebastian Buemi managed to finish P4, Dan Ticktum P5, Edoardo Mortara P6, Antonio Felix Da Costa P7, and Nyck De Vries P8, but he would receive a 5-second time penalty for the collision with Evans and would drop outside the points. Thus, Jean-Eric Vergne, Robin Frijns and Nick Cassidy, who finished P9, P10 and P11, respectively, would all move up a place.
Round 9
For round 9 we had a traditional qualifying session which saw Oliver Rowland take pole ahead of Dan Ticktum in P2. Mitch Evans did not take part in the race due to a collision with the wall during qualifying, which saw the Jaguar TCS Racing team unable to fix his car prior to the race.
It was a dry race this time, which saw Rowland hold the lead while Ticktum and Wehrlein had a big battle, but the Cupra Kiro driver held off the reigning world champion. De Vries and Bird had a collision which resulted in the Mahindra driver receiving a black and white flag. Hughes started the attack mode train while Wehrlein looked to try and overtake Ticktum. Rowland and Barnard had a small tap which put Rowland down to P4.
By lap 11, Rowland had not taken either attack mode before a full course yellow was brought out for debris. However, Da Costa misjudged the full course yellow and ended up breaking his suspension when it was deployed. Once we went green, Nato received a 5-second time penalty for speeding under the full course yellow. Wehrlein led the race while Rowland decided to take his first attack mode on lap 17. It was a 2 minute deployment with Jake Dennis took attack mode and made moves, including going up to P7 after overtaking Di Grassi by lap 20. Rowland then went down to P6 after Dennis overtook him. MANY drivers took attack mode on lap 24, including Wehrlein, Rowland, Ticktum, Barnard and Vergne, while Rowland stayed out and took P2.
There were fantastic battles with Rowland and Wehrlein not leaving anything between the two. Mortara and Barnard collided, which sent Barnard into the wall and brought out the safety car but not any added laps. The safety car went into the pits at the end of lap 31, which meant we got a 1-lap shootout.
Oliver Rowland won Nissan’s home race of Tokyo and further extended his championship lead. Pascal Wehrlein finishes P2 with Dan Ticktum getting his and Cupra Kiro’s first podium. Jake Dennis finished P4 ahead of the Lola Yamaha Abt of Lucas Di Grassi in P5. Jean-Eric Vergne finishes P6 ahead of Nick Cassidy in P7, with Sam Bird managing P8 and Sebastian Buemi and Maximilian Guenther finishing P10.
Formula E returns at the end of May for the Shanghai E-Prix doubleheader!
