The Winners and Losers of the 2026 Jeddah E-Prix Weekend
- Linus O'Howell
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
The first double header of Season 12 took place around the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia!
Winner: Antonio Felix da Costa
After a difficult start to his new life at Jaguar TCS Racing, things finally started to click for Antonio Felix da Costa in Jeddah! Antonio did a decent drive on Friday to finish P5, his best result of the season so far, and he followed it up with another appearance in the Duels on Saturday! In the Race, da Costa ran towards the front for most of the E-Prix, but what was particularly impressive about the Portuguese’s drive was the fact that he seemingly had a couple of percent more energy compared to the guys around him! Antonio eventually took advantage of this, building himself a nice gap to cruise home for his victory in Jaguar colours! It’s crazy that this was Antonio Felix da Costa’s first win since his late charge in Season 10, but he was great this weekend, with 35 points being a pretty strong weekend total for the Season 6 Champion!
Loser: Maximilian Gunther
There was a lot of hope and belief surrounding Maximilian Gunther heading into this weekend, with plenty of memories being brought up after Gunther achieved victory in Jeddah 12 months ago! Things started out great for Max Gunther; qualifying on the front row is a strong result, and it allowed him to lead in the early stages of the E-Prix! However, for whatever reason, the strategy that DS Penske decided to employ didn’t work out at all, with Gunther eventually finishing outside of the points completely! Not a great result, but hey, there was still another chance to bounce back in the second event of the weekend! In Qualifying, Max again did well to make it into the Duels (qualifying 6th overall), before more disappointing Race pace meant Gunther finished 11th again! To make the Duels twice and yet come away from this weekend with 0 points is a bit of a disaster for Maximilian Gunther; he needs a lot better Race results moving forward!
Winners: Cupra Kiro
Coming into this weekend, Rookie Pepe Marti had scored points in 2 of his 3 debut weekends, whilst team leader Dan Ticktum was yet to finish a Race! On Friday, Dan did finally manage to see the chequered flag, but the team as a whole only finished 12th and 14th. So, I hear what you’re saying, “Why are they on the winners list?” Well, yesterday was a pretty big day for Cupra Kiro, with Ticktum scoring his first points of the season in P5, whilst Marti went from 14th to 6th (with an added point for Fastest Lap)! We do have to mention the fact that these two nearly wiped each other out on the penultimate lap, but that aside, 19 points from a weekend for a team like Cupra Kiro is pretty good going! In fact, this is Kiro’s first double points-scoring finish since the 2022 Rome E-Prix (when they were known as NIO 333), which is actually pretty insane!
Losers: Andretti Formula E
After such a promising start in Sao Paulo, Andretti Formula E’s Season 12 is already starting to fall apart! Friday wasn’t great, with Jake Dennis only managing to score 2 points, whilst Felipe Drugovich ended up P15! On Saturday, things were already looking better, with Jake making it to the Duels Finals, eventually having to settle for a second-place start! Dennis was pretty vocal about the drivers around him “not knowing how to win these types of Races”, and he looked like he maybe had a point when he activated his first Attack Mode with more energy than anyone in the fight for the Win/Podium! Unfortunately, we’ll never know just how high up Dennis could’ve finished as his tyre quickly gave out on him; a puncture that killed the Brit’s 100% points-scoring record in Season 12! On top of this, Felipe was again sort of nowhere, with Drugovich eventually finishing where he started in P12! After 5 Rounds, Andretti find themselves 7th in the Teams’ Championship, and this puncture feels like a really big blow in Jake Dennis’ Title challenge (particularly at this stage of the season)!
Winner and Loser: Edoardo Mortara
Honestly, I have no idea how to truly assess whether Edoardo Mortara really was a winner this weekend or not, so that’s why I’m bringing back the “Winner and Loser” category just for him! On the one side, nobody scored more points than Edo Mortara this weekend, with Edo finishing P2 on Friday compared to P4 yesterday! However, 6 of Mortara's 36 points this weekend came from taking two Pole Positions, and yet, he didn’t win either Race! In any other category, we’d be talking about that in a negative light, especially considering the fact that Mortara probably would’ve won on Friday had it not been for a team failure at the start (which resulted in the Swiss driver dropping a ton of places off the line)! The positive for Edoardo Mortara is that he does now find himself second in the Drivers’ Championship, but I just can’t help but feel like Mortara has to be disappointed, given he missed two opportunities to finally win again!
Loser: Nyck de Vries
Well, this one is definitely not up for debate! As far as “waste of time” weekends go, Nyck de Vries has set quite the benchmark to beat, but just how bad are we talking? Well, on Friday, Nyck’s car refused to start, meaning he was out of the E-Prix before it even started! Because of this, Mahindra had to fix an awful lot of his car, resulting in de Vries taking a 60-place grid drop ahead of yesterday’s E-Prix! What that means is de Vries not only had to start at the back, but he had to serve a stop-and-go penalty, putting him well off the pack! In fairness, drivers have been able to recover from this in the past with the help of a Safety Car, but unfortunately for the Season 7 World Champion, the Safety Car wasn’t needed once! This meant that Nyck de Vries trundled his way around the Jeddah Corniche Circuit almost a lap down before the pain finally ended when the chequered flag was thrown! My goodness me, what a horror show!
Winner: Pascal Wehrlein
New Championship leader alert! One of the biggest qualities that Pascal Wehrlein has as a driver is his consistency; it’s what brought him to Championship glory in Season 10, and he’s shown that so far this season with three Top 6 finishes! On Friday, after bolting nearly 8 seconds down the road, Pascal was finally able to return to winning ways for the first time since Miami 2025! Now, yesterday didn’t quite go as well for Wehrlein, with the German only managing to finish P8, but once again, the Season 10 Champion picked up important points where others would fail! After 5 Rounds, Pascal Wehrlein leads this year’s Formula E World Championship, and I don’t think it would come as much of a surprise to many that he’s the only driver to have scored points in every E-Prix so far this season! Consistency wins Championships!
Overall Race Results (Round 4)
Pascal Wehrlein
Edoardo Mortara
Mitch Evans
Nico Muller
Antonio Felix da Costa
Nick Cassidy
Sebastien Buemi
Jean-Eric Vergne
Jake Dennis
Taylor Barnard
Maximilian Gunther
Dan Ticktum
Norman Nato
Pepe Marti
Felipe Drugovich
Lucas di Grassi
Oliver Rowland
Joel Eriksson
Zane Maloney (DNF)
Nyck de Vries (DNF)
Overall Race Results (Round 5)
Antonio Felix da Costa
Sebastien Buemi
Oliver Rowland
Edoardo Mortara
Dan Ticktum
Pepe Marti
Mitch Evans
Pascal Wehrlein
Jean-Eric Vergne
Taylor Barnard
Maximilian Gunther
Felipe Drugovich
Joel Eriksson
Nick Cassidy
Lucas di Grassi
Nico Muller
Norman Nato
Zane Maloney
Jake Dennis
Nyck de Vries
Drivers’ Standings
Pascal Wehrlein: 68pts
Edoardo Mortara: 62pts
Oliver Rowland: 49pts
Nick Cassidy: 48pts
Mitch Evans: 47pts
Teams’ Standings
Porsche Formula E Team: 113pts
Jaguar TCS Racing: 86pts
Mahindra Racing: 74pts
Citroen Racing: 58pts
Envision Racing: 55pts
Comments