Jaguar Formula E driver Antonio Felix da Costa pulled off a strategic masterclass to win the second leg of the Jeddah E-Prix, as Porsche endured a tough end to the weekend.
Having qualified third, da Costa bided his time in the opening phases of the race and timed his first Attack Mode to absolute perfection, ending a victory drought stretching back to the 2024 Portland E-Prix.
Envision’s Sebastien Buemi completed a 1-2 for Jaguar powered-cars, while Nissan’s Oliver Rowland performed an impressive comeback from a disastrous Friday to round up the podium.
With no Pit Boost stop allowed in Saturday’s race, the frontrunners deliberately controlled the pace in the first eight laps, with the likes of Mortara, Sebastien Buemi and Rowland all trading top spot – da Costa was also in the lead battle.
It was around lap nine of 30 when Mortara dropped the hammer, climbing rapidly from fifth to take the lead around the outside of Rowland. However, other drivers quickly responded, with Rowland and Buemi all going on to enjoy stints at the front as they continued to squabble for positions with Mortara.
Although da Costa had dropped off about halfway through, he had the most energy of his direct rivals, which would come to benefit him when he took his first Attack Mode on lap 18 – several laps after Rowland.
Oliver Rowland, Nissan Formula E Team
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
With the additional 50kW of power, da Costa stormed to the front, snatching the lead on lap 21. Mimicking Pascal Wehrlein’s winning strategy from Friday, the Portuguese built a buffer of 3.5s by the time he ran out of the extra energy boost.
The likes of Buemi and Mortara waited longer before taking their Attack Mode, and initially opted for just two minutes of extra power out of their eight-minute allocation.
Although both drivers rapidly charged their way to the front in the final stages after taking their second Attack Mode, with Buemi recovering to second, da Costa had enough in hand to secure his 13th series win. Buemi, who was the most aggressive with his energy usage early on, came under pressure from Rowland on the final lap, but hung on to second to secure his first podium of the 2025/26 season.
Reigning champion Rowland boosted his title prospects with a measured drive to third, while pre-race favourite Mortara could only manage fourth with Mahindra – the decision to take a two-minute Attack Mode at first leaving him with too much ground to cover later in the race.
Dan Ticktum put together a solid drive to finish fifth, having run as high as second while in Attack Mode. Team-mate Pepe Marti rounded off a strong race for Cupra Kiro in sixth, but it nearly ended poorly for the US-flagged team after Ticktum and Marti clashed on the penultimate lap while fighting for fifth.
Mitch Evans was next up in sixth for Jaguar, while Porsche’s qualifying struggles carried on in the race as Wehrlein only managed eighth. Citroen’s Jean-Eric Vergne and DS Penske’s Taylor Barnard completed the points scorers.
Vergne’s team-mate Nick Cassidy endured a tough race starting from eighth, the Kiwi enduring his second non-score in five races.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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