It is very unlikely that both Berlin victor Mitch Evans, nor runner-up Oliver Rowland, were thinking much about Leo Tolstoy, one of the most influential writers of all time as they initially toured around at the back of the elongated traffic snake on Sunday afternoon.
But the Russian scribe, who once said that “the two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”, may well have had two of Formula E’s best performers in mind had he still been around now and partial to checking out an EPrix or two.
They were together down at the back of the grid in 17th and 18th positions but Evans and Rowland already kind of knew that they were looking good for a potential crack at the podium and maybe even beyond.
Evans probably had a similar tingle in him as he had at Jarama in March but this time it was a bit different because the high macros and abrasive Berlin track had been very good and very bad to him so many times before.
The Hankook tyres on the Tempelhof surface are complex on how they perform over the lap and also how they recover post 350kW mode. But a fresher set is more or less always preferable in warm temps, especially with a race like Sunday’s that has a defined ‘go moment.’
For double-header Formula E events, the regular allocation increases to a maximum of six new front and six new rear tyres across the weekend. Pre-event a strategy began to be defined on how best to use that stash.
Rowland and Evans, Nissan and Jaguar delivered upon expertly, and they each got paid handsome dividends, although their progress was off-set quite considerably.
The reigning champion went much earlier, around Lap 11, while Evans concentrated on planning to exploit the delta to the ever-changing front bunch in the early stages. While they weren’t racing each other at this stage, Evans knew he soon would be as the race bubbled up to boiling point.
“I was getting the team to read every time he was up there,” Evans told FEN. “I could see his progress and once he kind of got to the front, he lost 2% to me straight away. So I thought, ‘OK, it’s expensive to try and get up there’ and I just kept in touch with the guys a lot through the race, saying, ‘look, you want me to go now? You want me to go now? And they just said, ‘no, we’re happy here. We’re happy here.’
Evans employed a 6mins and 2 mins attack mode plan, while Nissan and Rowland opted for a straight 4mins and 4mins. The former paid off a bit more and Evans was able to “not get stuck in any attack trains.”
“When you’ve got the energy, the power, and actually a good balance, they’re kind of defenceless in the end. So I was kind of surprised to get to the front. But obviously, that six minute, it’s a long time being in that power level when no one else is. Then I just started getting some battery temp warnings, managed that a bit, and then I was trying to cover off the other guys.
“They had, obviously, a two-minute overlap on me. But I managed that pretty comfortably, to be honest.
A race of patience had truly paid off. Old Leo would have been proud at the War and Peace both drivers went through in the 2026 Berlin EPrix.
The decision from Rowland’s eyes:
“I think it was always kind of a common thought throughout the team that it was probably better to start at the back in that race, a bit like Cassidy last year. But it’s a risk.
“You can have the race like Jeddah where a lot of people did the same saving strategy, but never got to the front because it just didn’t work. I think there was two mindsets for us. I’ve been struggling over one lap, so it’s like let’s go into another quali and try and build some confidence and reassert where we think we are, or on the other side, shall we kind of do what’s right? And I came in this morning and I said ‘look guys, for me I just think it’s better to save the tyre and I think other people will do it, so we won’t be alone.
“Let’s say I qualify and get in the duel and take seventh or eighth. I would actually prefer to start the back, so they sort of said ‘leave it with us’. Usually, they come back and you’ve vetoed. This time they said ‘yep, we’ll send Norman with new and we’ll send you with old (tyres for quali), and then I was like ‘oh shit, now I’ve got to do it.”
The decision from Evans’ eyes:
“It all kind of started yesterday and I would say from FP1. In terms of it coming into my mind, it’s been on my mind at other races, like Jarama, for example, but we obviously had the wet quali there.
“But here, because it’s just so aggressive, and for some reason my tyres looked horrible after FP1, I was like, ‘okay that’s not great, I think it’s going to get worse’.
“Then my tyres kind of plateaued. But anyway, it was, for the Pit Boost race, the target’s too high and I think it was harder to come forward. But for today, it was the right call.
“I was going to make a call after FP3, if I was still struggling for one lap pace. I just wasn’t confident enough to almost guarantee to get through to the duels as you see how tight it is. If you’re half a tenth the wrong way, you could be either P3 or P8 in the group.
“I just thought, I don’t want to take that risk. I took the risk yesterday but I was still 16th, and I’d burned the tyres. So, let’s just roll with the dice. I don’t have to win that pace, so let’s just try. With the race today being quite aggressive on energy, just try and do a big save, have the tyres as well, and see where we end up.
“I think it all came together. It’s hard to know how much it was just purely energy or just that clean attack. But my car felt a lot better today in the race compared to yesterday and I’m sure there was a factor there where the tyres did help.”
