The Winners and Losers of the 2025 Tokyo E-Prix Weekend

Linus O'Howell
May 19
4 min read

For the second time in May, a double-header weekend in Formula E took place, this time around the streets of Tokyo!

Winner: Oliver Rowland

As always in these articles, we start with Oliver Rowland! Oliver had an almost perfect weekend, he took Pole Position yesterday after Qualifying was cancelled (he was fastest in FP2), and the only reason he didn’t come home victorious was because another driver (who we’ll get to later) massively benefited from a Red Flag! However, Rowland still came second so he extended his Championship lead! As for today, Ollie Rowland took another Pole Position (his third in a row) before it looked like it was getting away from him in the Race as he found himself sixth after the end of his first Attack Mode! However, with an early call for his second Attack Mode plus a late Safety Car was enough for Oliver to charge back through and take yet another victory in Season 11! With 7 rounds to go, Oliver Rowland leads the rest of the field by 77 points, and that is an unseen margin in ABB FIA Formula E!

Loser: Mitch Evans

It’s another weekend where I’m talking about Mitch Evans having a shocker! In fairness to Mitch, he was driving pretty well in yesterday’s Race before he got wiped out from behind, and that ultimately damaged the car to the point where Jaguar had to retire him! Today, however, was an absolute disaster as Evans crashed his car in Qualifying, and the damage was too great for the team to be able to fix it meaning Mitch didn’t even start it! A retirement and a DNS, I don’t think you can get much worse than that!

Winner and Loser: Taylor Barnard

There are so many positives to take from Taylor Barnard’s weekend, but it was also gutting too! Yesterday was superb, Taylor did a great job to come home in P3, his 4th Podium of the season, and it was just another quality drive for him! Honestly, today was the same for the most part, Barnard was running inside the Top 5 for pretty much the entire E-Prix before he made a fantastic overtake to clear Dan Ticktum for third, just moments after he defended hard to keep Edoardo Mortara at bay! Unfortunately, at the same corner a lap later, Barnard was hit into the back off by Edo Mortara, and this sent the NEOM McLaren driver straight into the wall and out of the Race! Like I said, Taylor Barnard can be super proud of his efforts this weekend, but big points were definitely lost!

Winner and Loser: Jake Dennis

For the large majority of this weekend, it felt like Jake Dennis was a shoo-in to be in the loser category for this weekend! With Qualifying being cancelled, the Grid for Race 1 was set on the results from FP2, and that meant that Jake was starting last! The Race then turned out to go even worse as Dennis was disqualified for entering the pits and taking his pit boost when it wasn’t allowed, and that was just a mistake on Andretti’s part! In Qualifying today, Jake could only manage 14th, and the Season 9 World Champion spent most of the Race outside of the points! However, Dennis then brilliantly charged through, gaining 8 positions in Attack Mode, and he avoided the Mortara-Barnard incident to end up finishing 4th! Because of this, I can’t solely put Jake Dennis in the loser category because his drive today was absolutely superb, and he has also moved up to 5th in the Championship!

Winner: Dan Ticktum

Take a bow Dan Ticktum! Dan and Cupra Kiro have certainly been improving as of late, the overall package with the Porsche powertrain seems to be faster, and the results have been coming in as a result! However, this weekend was particularly strong as Ticktum scored a really good P5 in yesterday’s Race before he qualified a career-best second place this morning! In the Race, Dan kept his nerve throughout, sticking closely to both Oliver Rowland and Pascal Wehrlein before a great move to re-overtake Taylor Barnard was enough for Ticktum to score his first-ever Formula E Podium! Congrats to both Dan Ticktum and Cupra Kiro, this was awesome to see!

Loser: Edoardo Mortara

Whilst this might seem harsh given Edoardo Mortara finished 6th yesterday, I feel like this was a weekend of massive missed opportunities! See, Edo Mortara was running in a really strong position yesterday, he looked on for a Podium, but a d-rate whilst he was in Attack Mode ultimately cost both him and Mahindra the opportunity! In today’s Race, Mortara was looking strong again, he was running in the Top 5, but he couldn’t clear Taylor Barnard quick enough despite being in Attack Mode! This again took away Edoardo’s opportunity at a Podium place, and then he wiped out Barnard, resulting in a 5-second penalty that took him out of the points completely! On a perfect weekend, Edoardo Mortara scores 2 Podiums this weekend, but in the end he’s only come away with 8 points!

Winner: Stoffel Vandoorne

Well, we’re going to quickly gloss over today’s result because Stoffel Vandoorne didn’t have a great day as he retired from the Race! However, that doesn’t matter because in yesterday’s Tokyo E-Prix, Maserati MSG were the first team that deployed Pit Boost with Stoffel, and then a Red Flag came out, meaning Vandoorne gained like 50 seconds on the rest of the field! Because of this, Vandoorne was able to cruise home for the victory, despite spinning, and this ended up being Stoffel’s first win since Monaco 2022! At the end of the day, Stoffel Vandoorne should be delighted with his weekend!