Sanya EPrix: Sifting through the chaos
CUPRA Kiro team principal, Russell O’Hagan, told FEN that Dan Ticktum was distracted by battles going on in his mirrors just prior to the incident that disrupted his and Mitch Evans’ race on lap 18 of the EPrix and also cost him a 10-second time penalty.
“It was a misjudgement with Evans, which Dan held his hands up to,” said O’Hagan. “He was defending very hard from behind, so had his mirrors full of a couple of cars, and the kind of concertina-effect just backed up more that lap than it had in the previous few laps and he got caught out.”
Ticktum will also serve a three place grid penalty at Shanghai next month after he was found to have not reduced his speed to the stipulated 50kph under red flag conditions when he drove back to the pits following rejoining after the shunt.
O’Hagan also detailed the fraught period of repairs to both CUPRA Kiro’s after red flag inducing shunt at Turn 6, on Lap 19, praising the teams mechanics for the quick turnaround.
“The mechanics on both cars did a mega job to get that back out, so he (Marti) then startedtowards the back, but with a pretty big energy advantage, and the car surprisingly in very good condition,” said O’Hagan. “He then started to push in 300 we were super patient. We waited for the second attack mode cycle to kind of pretty much finish. I think there were three cars, maybe on attack mode right then, where Pepe took his, then was able to make super good progress.”
Pascal Wehrlein shared the opinion of many in questioning the need for a red flag intervention after the Turn 9 incident involving Mitch Evans, Zane Maloney, Sebastien Buemi and the two CUPRA Kiro’s.
“Seeing the pictures, it should have been a full course yellow,” Wehrlein told FEN. “I don’t think the cars were standing there for long, and it was decided quite quickly to be a red flag, which is a bit of a surprise.”
Nine-seconds separated the incident beginning at Turn 6 and the deployment of the red flag, one of the quickest red flag decisions anyone can remember.
Nick Cassidy was unclassified in the final result from the Sanya EPrix after a brake-by-wire failure on his Citroen. Cassidy led for a stage in the race and was in a strong position until the issue revealed itself just after the re-start from the red flag. Cassidy has scored just two points in the last four races. The last time he had such a poor run of races from a points perspective was from the London EPrix in 2024 to the first Jeddah race in February 2025.
Meanwhile, Cassidy’s teammate Jean-Eric Vergne claimed four points for eighth position, the fourth time the double champion has finished in that position this season. Vergne’s team took a €2500 fine for leaving wheel covers on the dummy grid just prior to the start of the EPrix itself.
Nyck de Vries inherited a podium position to round off an amazing month of racing for the Dutch ace with a win in Monaco, victory at Le Mans for Toyota and then an unlikely third place in Sanya moving him from 14th to 10th in the points standings in just two events.
De Vries rode a rollercoaster from crossing the finish line on Saturday, taking the chequered flag in fifth position. He was then promoted to fourth briefly after Antonio Felix da Costa’s penalty was applied before he himself was docked for a moving under braking offence and demoted down to sixth in the provisional standings. When that five second sanction was revoked after review he was bumped back up to fourth, which then became third after Felipe Drugovich was penalised post-race for an incident with Pascal Wehrlein.
On de Vries’ annulled penalty, the FIA stewards bulletin detailed that ‘while Car 21 (de Vries) changed direction after deceleration had commenced, the Stewards noted that, following an internal communication issue during the Race, the driver had already been shown the black and white flag in relation to this incident. In the circumstances, and taking into account that the matter had already been addressed by the Race Director, the Stewards determine that no further sanction is necessary.’
Watch the highlights of the Lianxin Sanya EPrix….
Porsche reflects
While the customer Porsche’s of Jake Dennis and Pepe Marti took a 1-2 in Sanya and two other of the Weissach built cars finished in the Top 10, with Felipe Drugovich fourth and Nico Mueller seventh, Porsche director for factory motorsport in Formula E, Florian Modlinger, rued the lack of points for title protagonist Pascal Wehrlein, who finished seventh on the road but got shuffled back to 14th in the final classification once his five-second penalty was applied.
“It’s a missed opportunity, especially when the main competition takes zero points, so clearly not what we targeted,” Modlinger told FEN. “There we need to now do our homework and come back stronger in Shanghai. What is promising is that the car and the powertrain works very well in the hot conditions, and it looks like we will face these conditions also in the next four races in Shanghai and Tokyo.”
Stats Post Sanya
DS Penske took its second biggest points score of the season last Saturday with Maximilian Guenther’s sixth and Taylor Barnard’s ninth place finish. The last time that DS Penske got two cars in the points was almost a year ago at the 2025 Berlin EPrix when Jean-Eric Vergne took a third place in the first race at Tempelhof.
Oliver Rowland crashed out of the Sanya EPrix to register just his third retirement from the last 43 races since he re-joined Nissan at the end of 2023. His previous two retirements in addition to Sanya were at the first Berlin EPrix and the last London EPrix last July.
Mahindra remains the only team to score points in every race held so far this season. The Indian team consolidated its third place in the teams’ standings via Nyck de Vries’ third position in Sanya. The last time Mahindra failed to score a point at a race was at the second Shanghai EPrix almost a year ago.
Jake Dennis’ eighth EPrix win ensured that he joined countryman Oliver Rowland on the same number of Formula E victories. Dennis went one clear of former teammate Maximilian Guenther. Dennis also took his eighth pole position at Sanya, equalling current competitors Antonio Felix da Costa and Nick Cassidy, as well as Jaguar reserve and development driver Stoffel Vandoorne.
Ticktum’s View…
Formula E TV reporter Alexa Rendell sat down with Dan Ticktum at Sanya to discuss the much reported disciplinary action taken by CUPRA Kiro after a mid-season review meeting late last month. Here is part of the transcript of that interview.
AR: It’s come out in the press that you were given a disciplinary following Monaco. Why was that?
DT: “You know, I’m not going to sit here and say ‘I’m perfect and people should just adapt to how I work’ because I’m not always the most professional, but I’m not bigger than the team. I know that. So, I do get where they’re coming from. I do feel like my team and just the people at the top, I feel like they focus a lot on the 1% sometimes. I feel like I’ve tried very hard for this team, brought pretty much all of their results. The balance isn’t quite being repaid correctly, if I’m honest.”
AR: “What does that mean?”
DT: “I worked quite hard in the off-season to actually find money for the team in the ERT days. Tried to manage the relationship very well with the American investors because they’ve never invested in motorsport and they don’t know how the team’s work. So, I’ve been very transparent about the people in the team, what I think needs to change. And I’ve just tried to help a lot, to be honest. And I feel like I’ve sort of poured a lot of my heart into this team.”
Winning for Bob
Dennis dedicated his win at Sanya to his fiancée’s father, Bob Boosey, who died recently. An emotional Dennis told Formula E TV after his win that he was “thinking of my partner’s family right now, it’s been a lot at home lately and to get the win for him means a lot to me. To do it for Bob is a big thing.”
Dennis took his mechanic Brandon Kuck, who has worked at every Formula E race ever held, on to the Sanya podium to accept the team trophy. Kuck and his teammate Julian Greenhalgh are two of only seven people, including team principal Roger Griffiths to have worked at every Formula E race since the first was held at the Beijing EPrix in September 2014.
German TV push needed
Improvements in the visibility of Formula E in Germany are a top priority according to Porsche motorsport chief, Thomas Laudenbach. Formula E will welcome a second German manufacturer in Gen4 as Opel join the grid later this year.
“It is one of the first points that we need to improve and we are talking to FEO, we are talking to Jeff and they’re on it,” Laudenbach told FEN recently.
“It’s for sure not easy, but very clear that our home base is Germany and we want to have it available for everybody easily in Germany. It is for sure one of the core points that we would like to see at least improved in the next year.”
Venturi’s Space launches new HQ
Venturi Space has announced a €250 million investment in France to establish its new 16,000 sq m technology centre in Toulouse. The site will be dedicated to the design and manufacture of critical technologies for lunar and Martian mobility, as well as to the assembly of the rovers developed by the company, founded by initial Venturi Formula E owner Gildo Pastor.
The industrial project led by Pastor, comes at a time of major acceleration. NASA has selected the CLV-1 rover developed by the American company Venturi Astrolab, Venturi Space’s strategic partner, to transport its astronauts across the surface of the Moon from 2028. This vehicle will draw on critical technologies developed by Venturi Space.
