Title Fighting Talk Begins
The 2025-26 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship title fight closed up significantly at the TDK Tokyo EPrix last weekend. New leader Jake Dennis leads the charge with 146pts, two ahead of former leader Mitch Evans. Pascal Wehrlein sits five points back from Dennis, while Oliver Rowland is nine points behind Wehrlein and 14 off Dennis. Edo Mortara and Antonio Felix da Costa are fifth and sixth in the standings but 30 and 33 points off Dennis.
Rowland: “14 points going into London, it comes down to whoever performs the best. So, we need to go away and work as hard as we can on every angle to see if we can do something special. But I don’t feel any pressure. The pressure is on those guys. They will all be focused on each other. I think there will be fireworks.”
Wehrlein: “Everything is to play for. Two years ago, we came to London 12 points down and we won the championship. So, I think we have good chances. We will try our best. We already secured the manufacturers’ championship. We have left a lot on the table this year, many races where we lost a lot of points. It is what it is. Now we try to have the best possible weekend in London. We will give it our best there.”
Evans: “It’s a good track for us. Hopefully there’s no surprises, but historically we’ve always been good there. It’s not much of a concern. We still have to turn up and execute well. The race is going to be so tough. All the guys have been fighting and are normally strong there, so I’m expecting a massive fight. It’s going to be fun to watch.”
Dennis: “We’ve done it before. We need to do it again. Ultimately, I think we can just go all out and try and win this thing. No one really remembers second place, so we just need to try and get the job done, I’m feeling confident and I’m really, really excited for the challenge ahead.”
Eriksson’s Woe/Mortara’s Penalty
Joel Eriksson was denied a reprise of his Shanghai heroics after getting hit by Edoardo Mortara at Turn 6, a move which blocked the track after Mitch Evans and the two Lolas got stuck behind the melee. Mortara received a 10-second penalty for the accident, which will be reverted to a five-place grid drop at the first London EPrix next month. The Swede pulled no punches after the race, stating that Mortara had been in a “bad mood” ahead of the contact.
“It’s pretty straightforward,” Eriksson outlined to FEN. “I overtook him at Turn 6 and we were side-by-side, then I was fully ahead going into Turn 7, and the guy decided to hit me from behind. He was apparently in a very bad mood; he was on the limiter over the radio for the whole race. I guess he was already upset and then he decided to take me out. I think we could have finished in the points with the last attack mode. It’s a shame that I was the guy who was in his way when he was mad.”
Eriksson added that set-up wise he was “something between wet and dry. It was getting better for us when it got drier towards the end. There was a clear dry line but it was still damp, so I think we made a good decision on the grid where to go on tyre pressures. Ultimately I think we maximised the package from where we started, so I think we did everything we could. Coming from P20, the realistic goal was to score points, and I think we could have done this.”
But the retirement meant that Envision recorded its first non-score from a double header since Jeddah in February 2025. They slumped to seventh in the team’s standings after being overtaken by Nissan and Citroen, and are now within striking distance of CUPRA Kiro who sit just 14 points in arrears to the Chinese entered team.
Tokyo Track Changes Needed
There is a general consensus that changes are needed to the Big Sight circuit in Tokyo’s Ariake district for Gen4 next season. The tight confines of the layout caused some issues last weekend particularly the red flag scenario but it is also the bumpy nature of parts of the surface that caused concerns.
“We need some pretty significant changes,” Porsche’s Nico Mueller told FEN. “ I think this year already with these cars, Turn 7 was so bumpy, I mean, my elbow is violet (FEN can attest to the bruising!). It’s not even a bump; it’s a bloody hole you drive through and it just feels already now not great.
“With these bigger Gen4 cars it’s not possible to do that first sector the way it is now. Already the last section is too tight. I think racing in Tokyo is absolutely phenomenal and we want to come back but I’m looking forward to see what options there are.”
Jaguar’s Mitch Evans broadly agreed with Mueller, telling FEN that “modifications have to be made. That’s without doubt. A few of the big bumps, it’s too narrow in some sections and the Gen4 cars are only fast when it’s bigger. Even for Gen3, it feels tight at times. There mustbe plans to modify it but by how much I don’t know what is possible.
“It’s important we’re here in Tokyo. It’s a great market, great place to race, but we have to make sure the track fits the product well and it will be the season finale as well. I’ll leave that up to FIA and Formula E to work out.”
Night Races are a Hit
The first ever Tokyo EPrix nights races were considered a big success as a packed out crowd and a pair of classic Formula E races left a genuine feel good factor hanging in the stolidly humid summer air over the Big Sight monolith in Ariake last weekend.
Formula E CEO, Jeff Dodds, outlined to FEN the challenges of putting on the event but was equally happy with how the 2025/26 penultimate event of the season went.
“One of the challenges is, it’s not a stadium,” said Dodds. “We haven’t got 100,000 grandstand seats out there. We’ve got 10,000 with a few thousand in Emotion Club. So, you get to 15,000 people, because that’s what we can build here. One of the challenges is you can only sell it up to a certain scale.
“On the other hand, it’s a very premium environment for sponsors and partners to get involved in. We’re finding that what we’re losing on grandstand tickets, because it’s not a 50,000 seater, we’re gaining, because there’s genuine interest from Japanese businesses being involved in partnering with it. TDK are the title partner of the race. And we’ve got Nissan, Yamaha, Bridgestone, and other Japanese businesses involved.
“I think over time, it has potential to be a really strong sponsor race and partner race, albeit we’re capped as to how big we can make it. I think realistically that you could probably get to 20,000 people here, but you’re not going to get to 40,000 or 50,000.”
London Energy Diet
The structure of the London EPrix finale races next month, the final Gen3 races ever, will take place over 38 and 35 laps respectively. That is a change from the 2025 event where the race distances were 37 and 34 laps. The useable energy this season will be 30.85kWh and 28.00kWh respectively, the latter of which is believed to be the least ever granted for an EPrix in the Gen3 era.
The final race of Gen3 will also be the last at the London ExCeL Arena before Formula E moves to Brands Hatch in 2027. The ExCeL hosted the first EPrix in July 2021 after originally being supposed to run the previous year, only to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Estoril and Barcelona on Horizon?
Two former classic F1 venues could be in the running for EPrix’s, with German based platform e-formel.de reporting last Friday that a possible additional race at the Circuit de Catalunya could be run next April. Team principals were presented with the idea at a meeting and it is believed it was met reasonably favourably.
FEN has also discovered that the Estoril track near Cascais in Portugal is also be being viewed as a possible future location. Stellantis will test at the track in September as part of its Gen4 development programme, with data from the test believed to be available to Formula E and the FIA to evaluate the possibility of a potential future event.
Insta-Karma: Dan socks it to ’em
CUPRA Kiro’s satirist in chief, Dan Ticktum, took to Instagram after his Saturday win to address some bizarre takes on his radio message when he stated he wouldn’t attack leader Jake Dennis on the last lap. Just as he relayed the message an opportunity arose after the Andretti driver suffered a powercut as his energy became critical. Some ‘fans’ appeared to invent a variety of obscure conspiracy theories around the message, something that Ticktum was keen to address.
“To everyone who is at me for that, I mean you’re really clutching at straws here, to hate on me,” said Ticktum. “It’s quite hilarious to be honest. But for the people who just didn’t understand that’s what happened, I was trying not to bring all the other people further down the field, and keep it between me and Jake. But he was down on energy the last lap and got a power cut, so… that was that. I hope it clears it up and for those writing hate, I won. So, sort of f*** you really.”
Barnard’s Trust in Penske
Taylor Barnard has backed the Penske team in light of its lateness of confirming its absolute plans for the Gen4 period which begins with the pre-season test in less than 16 weeks’ time. Asked if he had complete clarity on what he would be driving next season, Barnard told FEN he did not have “perfect clarity, but I have full trust in Phil, full trust in the team, and Jay to put something together. I think we’ve got the best group of engineers in the world in this team. There’s no reason for me to leave them. So, full loyalty, full support and full trust in what they’re going to do next year.”
