Formula E's first visit to Jeddah produced two entertaining races including a masterclass from the early championship favourite and the debut of the long-awaited Pit Boost.
Sam Smith picks out the biggest winners and losers from across the two races:
Winner: Oliver Rowland
The way Rowland exploited the enhanced efficiency of the new Gen3Evo package and then executed his second win of the season on Saturday was probably as domineering as wins in low-energy races can get. It even startled the man himself.
“It's a huge surprise,” he told The Race.
“I did not expect that but we know we've improved a lot in the race in terms of efficiency.
“At the start of the year I knew that, and I've been abusing it a little bit and not been the driver I was last year where I was collecting the energy and really scrapping for it.”
That’s an interesting development in Rowland’s overall approach to achieving easily quantifiable objectives. Call it bite-sized successful nibbles at building an early title tilt.
He was assertive when he needed to be. Impressively so as always calling the shots on the radio. Still, there was a subtle difference in this type of Rowland to the brutality of Shanghai and Misano of last season when he bulldozed his way through situations too.
“I was not being too aggressive in certain phases of the race,” he added.
“I think it paid off with how much energy I managed to build and then I think I understand the attack mode quite well and how to do it if you're up on energy and also if you're down on energy, it's completely different.
“I was able to capitalise on that. I felt in control pretty much the whole way to be honest.”
The win, added to his runners-up spot to Guenther the day before, ensured he has opened up an already healthy-looking 17-point gap in the title race. It feels, in the context of Formula E’s notoriously fickle form book, a bit foreboding for his pursuers.
Losers: Porsche/Andretti
The Porsches appeared to be a little blindsided a fair bit by the higher-than-initially-believed grip levels of the Jeddah track. It was this that probably contributed to its overall package suffering a rare neutering over the course of the two races.
Pascal Wehrlein’s first race was ruined by Mitch Evans’ rear-ending misjudgement but on Saturday a software glitch in qualifying saw a rare qualifying slump for the reigning champion as he failed to make it through to the duels for the first time this season and forced to start a lowly 13th.
He then activated his attack mode early and ascended the field but felt he was then in “an uncomfortable position where guys in front would activate the attack mode and right away overtake again".
“Guys from behind would overtake in just their final seconds of attack mode,” added Wehrlein. This he felt sent him into “a circle where you don't want to be”.
He then got “swallowed back down again, back down the order and then the field was too spread to make much of a difference when we activated our last attack mode".
That resulted in four points for eighth place and left Wehrlein ruminating upon the fact that "we've done four races now and only Mexico was kind of clean, so I think that’s priority number one [to work on]".
For Jake Dennis at Andretti, it was a tale of disruption by battery, as three changes were needed over the course of the event.
This significantly compromised the 2023 champion, although he salvaged something positive with a brilliant drive from 19th to a second consecutive fourth place on Saturday. It included arguably the move of the race when he hung it around the outside of Jean-Eric Vergne on the final lap.
Nico Mueller’s tough start to his stint at Andretti continued in Jeddah. A mistake on Friday misjudging the pack in front of him and around him saw him vault over the back of da Costa’s Porsche, while on Saturday he went completely missing from qualifying with grip struggles, lining up on the back row of the grid.
Like Dennis, an energy-banking start was supposed to allow a crescendo of a finish but it never came as spectacularly as his team-mate and he had to settle for a frustrated 11th place finish.
Winner: Taylor Barnard
The boy wonder! The baby-faced assassin!
It feels remarkable to realise that a driver with just five E-Prix under his belt ahead of Jeddah, left it as the one closest challengers to Rowland in the points standings as Formula E enters its enforced two-month-long hiatus.
Barnard was nothing short of sensational at Jeddah. A polished third and second decorated by a first pole position. More milestones ticked off for a 20-year-old who less than a year ago wasn’t even thought of as even a potential race driver in Formula E let alone someone who’d be fighting right at the very front.
This ascent hasn’t been seen since Jake Dennis's stunning rookie season in 2021, and while his team boss Ian James was effusive in his praise for Barnard, particularly his pragmatic and level-headed approach, it was also articulated without a modicum of surprise.
“While the race was going on, you're having a debate on the pitwall, so to speak, as to how much information and guidance to give him,” James told The Race.
“On a number of occasions today, we sort of said ‘should we advise him of this or that or the other?’ and tell him how to manage the race?
“And credit to the team here, the decision was no, actually, he's more than capable of working it out himself and he doesn't actually need that guidance. I think he's just got a feel for how these races are going to play out, which is certainly not to be underestimated.”
James is dead right. The way Barnard rose to the challenge of two very different race narratives last weekend was highly impressive.
James himself was “listening out for that little sort of crack in his voice or something that says he's under pressure or he's nervous”.
There wasn’t even a hint of that.
“He'll keep his feet firmly planted on the ground, I'm sure of that,” adds James. “That's why he's so exciting."
The Race also asked James if he would cover any extra baggage expenses for his charge’s trophies on his flight home.
As NEOM McLaren has throughout Barnard’s mercurial Formula E career already, James jokingly backed his driver again. “Yes, we'll cover him on that one.”
Losers: Jaguar/Envision
Jaguar had another tough weekend with more reliability problems scuppering its out-and-out performance.
When everything is right the race pace appears to be there to some degree, although there has to be much more to come if the Big Cat is to have any hope of defending its 2024 titles.
However, in Jeddah, it was the one lap pace that really killed any chance of it featuring at the front.
Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy both fought tooth and nail as expected but never felt anywhere near the range of Nissans or Stellantis octet that led the way in Jeddah.
Cassidy’s excellent fight through from 17th to fifth was the standout highlight. But for a team with much higher expectations, it was really just scant consolation.
Evans had his Friday race blunted by him hitting Wehrlein on lap one and then the second race brought a brake-by-wire failure after the original system had been replaced just before the start of the race.
Envision’s weekend was a much more expansive disaster than its manufacturer mothership. It brought zero points again, nor indeed any prospect of them. After the race, its leader Sylvain Filippi was prostrate on a sofa outside the team garage completely exasperated.
Envision was forced to make multiple changes and replacements to both of its Jaguars after a wide range of technical issues saw them chase their own tails for the majority of the meeting.
Frijns briefly led on Saturday but it was effectively an energy suicide mission that would have little overall bearing in the bigger race picture, as he then had to save in the later stages and finished a moribund 14th.
There was little else of positive note in a weekend to forget, but one also that now leaves the team trying to understand where it goes from here with a package that it is still trying to understand on the rare occasions it actually works for them.
There’s a big eight weeks away from the track coming for Jaguar and customer Envision.
Winner: Stellantis
In the coming days DS Automobiles will know whether it is continuing in Formula E or not for the next rules set between 2026 and 2030, so Max Guenther’s fine win on Friday could be immaculately timed.
The feeling is that it’s a genuine 50/50 as it stands. That’s the same percentage ratio that Guenther himself will be appraising his week in Jeddah.
It’s a bit cheap to say it was ‘typical Guenther’ with a finely judged win against Rowland one day and then a big mistake 24 hours later that ruined his and Antonio Felix da Costa’s race.
Cheap because he’s come a long way from his inconsistent Andretti, and to a lesser extent, Maserati days. Although unfortunately on this occasion da Costa will need a bit more convincing of that analysis right now.
While genuinely effusive in his apologies to the Porsche driver for his first lap faux pas on Saturday night, it cost him a possible crack at a rare double win, which in addition to a five-place grid drop for Homestead, was a sobering way to end an otherwise super strong weekend.
The bigger picture was that Guenther played a significant part in DS Penske breaking its two-year famine, and all in only his third race for his new team.
Jean-Eric Vergne increased his 100% points scoring record this season although a sixth and a seventh will be viewed as a modest return by the double champion.
Maserati MSG meanwhile had much to cheer on and off the track, with news that it has new owners on the Monegasque side of its business as Brooklyn Earick comes in as CEO and Chairman.
Jake Hughes finally got his stint with the team off to a proper start with a strong weekend that brought a fifth on Friday, his second-ever podium with a third place finish on Saturday, plus a fastest lap.
After ending the first race of the season at Sao Paulo the wall and scrapping for a point in Mexico, Hughes should kick on well from Jeddah now.
His team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne was unlucky not to get at least as many points as Hughes. But he could only manage a single point on Friday after a sluggish start to the race, while on Saturday he put in a superb shift to go full ‘top gear from the rear’ with a P22 to sixth place epic.
Vandoorne should have started the race third but was shunted back for, of all things, not having his fire extinguisher armed in qualifying. It was a cruel outcome, one in which he channelled his anger to fully disprove the widely held notion he often struggles with the execution of low energy races.
Loser: Antonio Felix da Costa
A weird little curse appears to have struck da Costa in Saudi Arabia. Ever since he won the first Diriyah E-Prix in 2018 he has suffered in the sand.
Last season at Diriyah was one of the lowest points of his career, and while this year he was probably the best of the Porsche sextet all-round, his races were compromised by Mueller and Guenther wrecking balls before a lap was even completed,
Yet the bigger picture for da Costa and Porsche is the longer game. And in fact, it could yet be proved that Jeddah might actually be viewed as something of a wake-up call in light of how much better Nissan and Stellantis-powered cars generally were. A cold shower let's say, one that could pay dividends come the summer.
“We’ve got a little to-do list,” da Costa understated to The Race.
“For performance in the car. I think we will go testing at some point between now and Miami. I think the boys and girls in my garage are super motivated and hungry. I think that's the best motivator of all."
Winner: Formula E/Pit Boost
It was a strong weekend for Formula E upon its first visit to Jeddah.
The track was so-so, however. ‘One chicane too many’ was the overall feeling from the drivers and team. The awkward look of them was quite ungainly on TV.
That apart there can be no question that two entertaining, but very different races played out and brought forth memorable finishes in particular.
Whether you prefer the mind-boggling and be-dazzled multiple inputs of action that Friday brought forth amid the debut pit boost and attack mode combined, or the more narrative-friendly Saturday pot-boiler, it’s probably a matter of individual taste. But what can’t be argued against is that both brought close action that went down to the chequered flag.
The pit boost was generally well received and it felt like a collective ‘phew’ was exhaled around the paddock that no races appear to have been overly affected directly by the boost itself.
Dan Ticktum might flare up against that but his issues were nothing to do with the hardware itself, rather that an error code in the RESS triggered a reset before Ticktum could be boosted.
For the pit boosting itself, there was quiet satisfaction from the FIA side.
“From an operational point of view, all the teams have done a fantastic job on managing it on their side and trying to understand what the best strategy would be on deploying the pit boost and the attack mode and all over the race,” the FIA’s head of championship for Formula E, Pablo Martino told The Race.
“I think also they have integrated really well in the strategy of the race. Some better than the others, but probably after Jeddah they go back home with a really big amount of data and analyse to improve the strategy.
“We have to be quite satisfied with how it went. Like the teams, probably on our side in race control, there were some big learnings as well. Nothing wrong, nothing bad, but learnings to keep us improving on this.
“We probably will discuss a couple of things more with the teams in Homestead. Probably some operational changes for the future. Not a big deal, but something that we have to review together.”
Loser: Norman Nato
Norman Nato has definitely had his slices of bad luck upon his return to Nissan. But there have also been a few mistakes at his end too.
It was the same cocktail of frustration in Jeddah as he again came away with no points in the best package in the field. Whatever the reasons, and there were many, that's not a good look, especially when your team-mate has brought forth 68 of them from four races.
The main mitigating circumstance was a team-related issue with tyre pressures being under the minimum on Friday. That brought a drive-through and anchored him to a lowly 17th place finish. Yet he also hadn’t really got it together in qualifying, starting mid-grid in 12th place.
A day later, and again Nato failed to make the duels, although the actual starting place was less critical this time around in light of the saving in the first half of the race.
Nato got up to seventh briefly but then just seemed to get bullied out of real contention. This, in conjunction with a lack of fighting energy in the final stages saw him finish an uninspired 15th with plenty of questions needing answers from both sides after the race.
“He got involved in some very hard manoeuvres and lost one position because of a car moving under braking,” Nissan team principal Tommaso Volpe told The Race.
“It was a very confused race and he lost positions. We haven't seen, to be honest, the data yet so I don't know if there was any issue also in the package because he got touched here and there.”
Additional quotes from Georgia Williams
