Welcome back after 5 week break and now the shortest gap left between race weekends is next with only 2 weeks until the Shanghai doubleheader. A lot was revealed in this break as: Jarama will hold pre-season testing for Season 13 (the first season under Gen 4 regulations), McLaren Formula E team were fined for a cost-cap breach they incurred last season even though they no longer compete in the series, and we got a new layout for the Sanya Street Circuit. What was not formally announced, but sneaked in was the title sponsor for this ePrix, Lianxin who are Chinese company that make injection blow plastic mould machines. Next season's pre-season will be 16th-20th November this year and McLaren (or more specifically the holding company that "owned" the team) are forced to pay a €400,000 fine by the end of June for a minor overspend (4.54% over the cost cap to be exact) which was caused by the costs associated with closing down a race team after they withdrew from the series.
The new layout affects the first four corners of the circuit, as originally turn 1 was a 90 degree left-hand turn that led into a slightly more open left-hander for small straight to turn 3 which was a 90 degree left-hander before a small straight heading into the hairpin for turn 4. Now, turn 1 is a lot more obtuse in its angle and their is a proper straight between the corners and a new corner is added just after turn 2, making turn 2 a curved brake zone for it. turn 3 is turn 4 numerically and does not change, but the straight between it and turn 5 (previously turn 4) is more parallel with the straight after turn 5 into 6 (previously turn 5).
The next Formula E race will be the 2026 Shanghai ePrix doubleheader with the first race on 4th July 2026 at 07:00 UTC and the second race on 5th July 2026 at 07:00 UTC. You can find out where to watch it here.

Qualifying

Beyond Taylor Barnard impeding Jean-Eric Vergne in Free Practice 2 and Sebastien Buemi grinding to a halt in Free Practice1, they were no real incidents during the Free Practice session beyond trips into the run-offs as drivers found the limit.
Now to Qualifying. Group A consisted of: Mitch Evans, Edoardo Mortara, Nico Mueller, Nick Cassidy, Sebastien Buemi, Josep Maria 'Pepe' Marti, Felipe Drugovich, Taylor Barnard, Norman Nato, and Lucas Di Grassi. The standard run plan for qualifying was to: do 2 prep laps, a push lap, 2 cool laps and 1 last push lap, also because he changed both his MCU inverters and Gearbox, Lucas has a 40 place grid penalty and would have to serve some of that via a 10 second stop-and-go penalty as he cannot drop 40 places. Other drivers with grid penalties are: Taylor (10 places for the incidents with Norman and Jean-Eric Vergne last race) and Pepe (5 places for for the incident with Nick last race). The top 4 in group A and thus made it to the Duel stage were: Felipe, Taylor, Mitch, and Nick.
Group B went next and consisted of Oliver Rowland, Pascal Wehrlein, Antonio Felix da Costa, Jake Dennis, Nyck de Vries, Joel Eriksson, Dan Ticktum, Jean-Eric Vergne, Max Guenther, and Zane Maloney. The driver in this session with a grid penalty was Max Guenther, who has 3-place grid penalty for speeding under Full Course Yellow and he did this because: he followed normal protocol, but forgot that he had pressed pit limiter so pressed the button again, turning it off and to work out if it was on or not he had to speed under Full Course Yellow. During this session, Zane grounds to a halt into the run-off of turn 4 after hitting the barriers on the exit of turn 3 and he changes his MCU inverters and Gearbox, so he'll serve the penalty of 40 grid places next race. The 4 that made it into Duel stage from group B were: Pascal, Nyck, Dan, and Jake.
The 1st Quarter-Final was between Mitch and Taylor, with the former winning by 0.001 seconds while the 2nd Quarter-Final was between Nick and Felipe with the latter winning by 0.392 seconds. Quarter-Final 3 was between Dan and Nyck, which saw the former advance by a huge 0.044 seconds, while the final Quarter-Final was between Pascal and Jake which saw the latter moving on by 0.423 seconds after mistakes for Pascal in turns 6 and 9. Semi-Final 1 was between Mitch and Felipe, which the latter won by 0.025 seconds and Semi-Final 2 was between Jake and Dan with the former winning by 17.392 seconds thanks to Dan ending up in the run-off for turn 9 after a mistake. The Final saw Jake winning by 1.078 seconds which was not unexpected as he was by far the fastest driver in 350kw power (the power used Duel Stages of qualifying and during attack mode).

Race

Overall Drivers' Championship

Jake Dennis wins the ePrix from Pepe Marti in 2nd and Nyck de Vries in 3rd, although that is not the podium initially because Felipe Drugovich would follow his teammate to finish 2nd and Pepe would be 3rd and Nyck was provisionally classified 7th. Why the change? Well, there were a number of incidents this race that were penalised and some of those penalties were more justified than others. The start was delayed as their was some debris left on the dummy grid, as Citroen Racing forgot to pick up the wheel covers used on Jean-Eric Vergne's car to keep his tyres cool (China's Hawaii is hot in the summer - shocking) and were fined €2500. The first incident was on lap 8 into turn 6 when Nyck moved under braking against Antonio Felix da Costa and was given a black and white flag for the incident (which is shown to a driver to warn them to be careful with their on-track conduct as they will be penalised the next time they do something like this), however the stewards didn't receive this communication due to a "technical issue" and issued Nyck a 5-second time penalty that was eventually rescinded post-race when they did. Antonio would also be caught moving under braking into turn 6 and doing so catches Norman Nato unaware and he makes contact with Antonio's rear, although we don't see the move live (later in the broadcast via a replay), so I can't tell you which lap and his incident is noted at the same time as Nyck's, but when Nyck moves against Antonio, Norman is nowhere near to hit Antonio. The next incident seen live happens on lap 11 in turn 9 where Edoardo Mortara suffers significant damage to his front wing when Oliver takes a wider entry than expected and his rear right tyre clips Edoardo's front wing, damaging it enough that it scrapes the ground from medium-fast and higher speeds but it doesn't hurt his overall speed as Edoardo is still able to lead 2 laps (laps 15 and 17 respectively). The next penalty-worthy incident is on lap 18 when Dan Ticktum misjudges his braking for turn 6 and collides with Mitch's rear wing and damaging both it and his own front wing and then is hit with a 10-second time penalty from the stewards and this isn't the last incident for Mitch as a lap later in turn 9 he and Zane Maloney make contact and interlock wheels, which blocks a significant portion of the track in that turn and the red flag was shown. The problem with this incident isn't the contact itself (the stewards deem it to be racing incident despite Sebastien Buemi making slight contact with Mitch's rear which may have offset his line enough that he fails to perform an overtake that has been done cleanly up to this point) but instead the red flag as that is only used with safety in mind and there was nothing dangerous with this situation. There was still a cars width between the barriers on the inside of 9 and Mitch's car, so the track was not blocked and the incident had by and large sorted itself out even though the 2 Cupra Kiro drivers had lengthened the crash after Pepe went into the back of Mitch and Dan into the back of his teammate.
To be honest, I saw the red flag as more sporting thing, so no-one accidentally caught out by it was punished by losing a whole load of track position, such as those caught on the outside of Formula E car snake (the Nissan Formula E team drivers and Nyck), but they tried to justify its usage by claiming a safety reason of checking the wall on the outside of turn 9, which had suffered no damage. Another problem with the red flag was the time it took to go back racing and while there is no minimum time needed to be under red flag as the only things expected of race control is to notify likely restart time as soon as possible, which is usually given 5 minutes before resumption, along with keeping the time under red flag to as short as possible and given that the time under red flag was 15 minutes, which is more than enough time to check a wall. I think the likely reason for the lengthy red flag was allow those competitors with significant damage to fix, e.g: Dan, Mitch, Edoardo, have chance to fix the damage and not go laps down because we returned to racing before they had finished fixing the damage. This is important as the championship's Technical Delegate (for bodywork purposes it's Laurent Arnaud) may request certain competitors must fix their damaged race car before returning and it is a bad look if they are multiple laps down for damage that isn't fully self-inflicted. Also, leaving the scene of the incident Zane Maloney and Dan would both speed under red flag conditions so would pick up 5-second time penalties that are converted to 3-place grid drops for the next race in Shanghai.
After the red flag, things go wrong for top 4 of the standings as Mitch's damage is so significant that he does not restart at the same time as everyone else and is so off the pace that he is lapped and retires on the final lap. Edoardo retires for the same reason that Nico Hulkenberg retired from 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix (couldn't we have called it the Catalan Grand Prix like MotoGP does for their round at Barcelona-Catalunya circuit?) - debris hits his fire extinguisher loop and kills his car on lap 22. Pascal goes for an overly-optimistic move on Norman into turn 3 on lap 27 (Pascal claims he was cut off before elaborating to media that Norman lifted off so much earlier that a move was possible) and was hit with a 5-second penalty and Oliver Rowland throws it all away on lap 38 when he loses control of his car through turn 4 trying to overtake Pascal. Also, unseen by all except their fellow competitors according to The-Race but we do see it, Felipe made contact with Pascal in turn 9 on lap 36 about for which the stewards found him to be predominately at fault and picked up a 5-second penalty post race. Another driver who had a bad time in Sanya is Nick Cassidy as he would pick up damage that necessitated repairs and he would also speed in the pit lane and would need to serve that and would retire 2 laps down.

1. Mitch Evans (=0)
2. Oliver Rowland (=0)
3. Pascal Wehrlein (+1)
4. Nico Mueller (+1)
5. Edoardo Mortara (-2)
6. Antonio Felix da Costa (=0)

All drivers have more points under the alternative format compared to their real life totals, with the one who has the most points compared to real life is Max Guenther, who has 39 more points under the alternative format (57) compared to real life (18), while the one with the smallest gap is Oliver Rowland who has 2 more points under the alternative format (111) compared to real life (109). There are differences between the standings and the driver who gains the most position's under the alternative format is Nico Mueller who gains 3 places to be 4th under alternative format compared to 7th in real life, while the drivers who loses the most positions is Dan Ticktum who drops 3 places to be 17th under the alternative format, but is 14th in real life.
Below are the overall Drivers' Championship standings:

Customer Trophy for Drivers

The class is won by Jake Dennis with 2nd in class going to Pepe Marti, and 3rd to Felipe Drugovich, although Felipe was 2nd provisionally and Pepe 3rd before the former's penalty. Jake leads from the start until lap 11 where he is passed by Dan Ticktum in Attack Mode on the exit of turn 10 and Dan maintains the lead until lap 17 where Jake passes him back via Attack Mode into turn 8. Jake maintains the lead on the restart after the red flag and all the way to the chequered flag. With Jake only 1 point behind Sebastien, momentum is with him and if he can outscore him in the next 6 races (he has done so in 6 of 11 races so far this season) then the title is his.
Below are the Customer Trophy for Drivers standings:

Nelson Piquet Jr Trophy

The winner of the class is Pepe Marti, with 2nd going to Felipe Drugovich and 3rd to Nico Mueller. Felipe leads from the start until turn 11 on lap 9, when his passed by Zane Maloney who is in Attack Mode but doesn't actually clear Felipe until the exit of turn 5 on the next lap. Zane leads until lap 17 where he is passed by Felipe in Attack Mode on the straight between turns 7 and 8. Felipe continues to lead the class after the restart on lap 20 but loses the class lead to Nico Mueller in Attack Mode on lap 22 into turn 11 but takes the class lead the same way Nico took it on lap 34 and leads the class home until post-race where his 5-second time penalty hands the class win to Pepe. With a 2nd poor class result in a row for Nico, For someone with such a car advantage over his competitors, the fact that at this stage Nico only has 17 point advantage over his competition is of slight concern - especially when it was over 20 points a couple of races ago.
Below are the Nelson Piquet Jr Trophy standings:

Overall Teams' Championship

Despite one of their cars retiring, Jaguar TCS Racing continue lead the standings under both formats with Porsche Formula E Team and Mahindra Racing 2nd and 3rd respectively under both formats. All teams have more points under the alternative format compared to real life and There are 2 changes between the 2 formats in terms of the standings as that Envision Racing are ahead of Nissan Formula E Team under the alternative format but are behind in real life and the same applies for Cupra Kiro and Citroen Racing Formula E Team respectively. The biggest gainer in terms of points is DS Penske who have 68 more points under the alternative format (112) compared to real life (44).
Below are the overall Teams' Championship standings:

Customer Teams' Championship

Despite losing the 1-2 finish both in class and overall, Andretti Formula E lead outright by 7 points over Envision Racing, while Cupra Kiro are further 25 points adrift of Envision.
Below are the Customer Teams' Championship standings:

Manufacturers' Cup

Jaguar continues to lead the standings in Manufacturers' Cup under alternative format with a points total of 250, although Porsche tie them for points under the alternative format and lose out on countback (Jaguar have 4 class wins to Porsche's 2) while Stellantis are 3rd on 234 points. However in real life, Porsche lead the Manufacturer standings over Jaguar with 324 and 283 points respectively while it is Mahindra in 3rd with 158 points and Stellantis are 4th, where Mahindra are under the alternative format. Porsche and Jaguar are the only manufacturers to have less points under the alternative format, with Porsche having the biggest discrepancy at 74 points. The biggest gainer in terms of points is still Lola-Yamaha, whose 134 points under the alternative format is 84 points greater than their real life total of 48.
Below are the Manufacturers' Cup standings: