Jeddah Formula E race two: Rowland's ominous message to rivals

Oliver Rowland called it “domination, baby” over Nissan team radio as he took Jeddah race two victory by nearly six seconds. And given he now takes a 16-point championship lead going into the series’ two-month break having won two of the 2024-25 season's four races, that celebration phrasing was pretty apt.

Leading finishers:
1 Rowland
2 Barnard
3 Hughes
4 Dennis
5 Cassidy
(Full result at bottom of page)

Though McLaren’s 20-year-old Taylor Barnard had become Formula E’s youngest-ever polesitter and led the early stages, Rowland always seemed in control of this race even when slightly behind.

He carefully picked when to lead and when to conserve energy in others’ slipstreams and as the race entered its closing stages he was not only leading but had six minutes of attack mode left when the majority around him only had four and was looking stronger on remaining energy than anybody else.

Some of his threats eliminated themselves - Friday winner Maximilian Guenther ploughed into Porsche’s top qualifier Antonio Felix da Costa on lap one and took them both out.

Andretti driver Jake Dennis waited until past half-distance to take his first attack mode then took the second almost immediately afterwards in a strategy that took him from 19th on the grid to the race lead, then left him vulnerable to those still to take their second hit.

Jake Hughes of Maserati MSG looked like he might be a late threat to Rowland, having been among the leaders throughout and gone for his final attack mode late.

But a very frustrated Hughes got caught behind Barnard as the McLaren driver claimed second place and a third podium from the season’s first four races with a queue of cars behind him. Dennis nearly managed to grab a podium amid Barnard and Hughes's tussle.

Nick Cassidy salvaged fifth for Jaguar (and his first points of the whole season) by running both attack modes quite early on a day when he and team-mate Mitch Evans had only qualified 17th and 15th and Evans retired in the pits.

Hughes’s team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne had made the quarter-finals in qualifying before being put to the back of the grid because his Maserati’s fire extinguisher wasn’t primed. He recovered well to join the podium queue in sixth, ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne - who’d spent much of the night battling with Rowland and Hughes before his DS Penske was edged back.

Reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein had only qualified 13th for Porsche and tried to recover by taking his first attack mode very early and his second very late. It didn’t pay off and he ended up only eighth.