The next round of the 2025-26 FIA Formula E world championship will be staged at a slightly modified Sanya street track that is around 90% the same circuit that staged the inaugural race in March 2019.
That event was supposed to be the first of several races on the island of Hainan, which has a special Chinese province status and is being built up as the largest free-trade port in the world, a status it wants to achieve by 2035. However, the global Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 put paid to those plans and a deal for a return to the island was only completed in early 2025.
Formula E Notebook can reveal that the circuit will be 2.48kms in length as opposed to the 2.23kms long track from 2019, a race won by Jean-Eric Vergne in a DS Techeetah.
This months race will run to 37 laps, rather than the 36 laps (60mins + 1 lap) of six years ago. The 2026 Sanya EPrix will be one of the few races in Formula E history that will include a so-called ‘zero lap’ whereby an off-set from the dummy grid – to be located at Turn 4/Turn 5 – to the start and finish line, which is in the same place as the 2019 race. Drivers will be required to travel at 50km/h on the ‘zero lap’ before the standing start which will take place on the grid between Turns 10 and Turns 11. The off-set distance from the starting grid to the finish line is 535metres, similar to that of 2019.
The main changes to the circuit consist mainly of a different configuration of the first three corners, all left handers. The 2026 version will see a much more open Turn 1 followed by a double apex left which now makes the old Turn 2, a pair of left hand corners, with the second one of these opening out on to the short straight to Turn 4 (the old Turn 3).
The other significant changes come at the old Turn 10 area. This previously saw cars taking a medium speed right-hander but this has now seemingly got more flow to it, likely making it much faster.
The final left at the end of the lap (then T11, now T12) sees what looks like a cleaner and more flowing 90-degree corner that appears to do away with the jutting out exit barrier on the outside of the corner.
The race, scheduled for June 20 will run to the regular 38.5kWh of usable energy allowance with the 0.93 regen coefficient.
What happened in 2019?
The first Sanya EPrix was held just two weeks after the final ever Hong Kong EPrix in what was Formula E’s then Asian leg in the spring of 2019.
March that year was particularly challenging for many in the paddock as the week between the two races saw the Sebring 12 Hours take place. It was during that weekend that legendary F1 race director Charlie Whiting died suddenly in the build-up to the Australian Grand Prix.
The practice period saw drama for Sebastien Buemi as he crashed his Nissan bizarrely at Turn 1. This was the start of a controversial story that saw Nissan’s then innovative dual-motor system exposed and eventually outlawed by the FIA. It is believed that this accident was a legacy of the system and prompted the FIA to investigate elements of the design further.
Oliver Rowland took a surprise pole position in the other Nissan from Jean-Eric Vergne’s DS Techeetah, Antonio Felix da Costa’s BMW and Daniel Abt’s Audi.
Vergne put what was ultimately a race wining move on Rowland at the final corner with 20-minutes of the race to run.
Vergne’s teammate Andre Lotterer fed Andretti BMW’s Alexander Sims in to the wall bringing out a red flag. At the re-start Vergne was placed under investigation for a safety car infraction which eventually came to nothing, while Robin Frijns was tipped in to Lucas di Grassi by an errant Buemi, with the former two forced out while Buemi got a 10-second time penalty dropping his from sixth to eighth place.
That incident ensured the race ended under safety car with Vergne claiming his first win of the season and thrusting him to third place in the standings behind da Costa and Mahindra’s Jerome d’Ambrosio. The French ace would go on to win at Monaco and Berne and seal a second title, becoming the only driver in Formula E history to win back-to-back championships.
Meanwhile at Jaguar, a woeful performance by Nelson Piquet Jnr, in which he qualified last and then crashed on his own in the race, resulted in his exit from Formula E. He was replaced for the next race at Rome by Alex Lynn.
