What happened in Formula E’s crash-heavy Evo Sessions at Jeddah

Formula E held the second edition of the Evo Sessions at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit on Sunday, bringing together 10 influencers from around the world for a duel-style contest.

After the success of the inaugural edition in Miami last year, Formula E added a competitive element and integrated Evo Sessions into the Jeddah E-Prix weekend.

Following the two championship races at the Saudi Arabia track on Sunday, each of the 10 Formula E teams handed over their Gen3 Evo car to a selected content creator, all of whom had received special training to prepare for the contest.

The group was split into two artificial teams, Senor Frogs’ and ‘Quickstar’, each led by a team principal, who was also an influencer. YouTuber Callum Airey, better known as Calfreezy, headed Senor Frogs, Vikram Singh Barn (Vikkstar) was in charge of Quickstar.

Who raced in Evo Sessions?

Ten influencers, a vast majority of which were YouTubers, drove Formula E’s Gen3 Evo car in the Jeddah Evo Sessions. Including the two team principals, a total of 12 influencers were involved in the event.

In most cases, the content creators had no prior experience of driving racing cars, but there were some notable exceptions. Juca took part in the first edition of Evo Sessions, the BurntChip had already completed 24-hour karting races and Emilia Hardford having built her success as a car builder and driver. 

What was the format?

While the first edition of Evo Sessions in Miami was essentially an extended test, Formula E directly pitted 10 influencers against each other at Jeddah. While it was not possible to put the entire field on track at the same time, the contest was decided by fastest laps, similar to rallying.

Competitive action began with qualifying in the afternoon, with each driver getting the track to themselves for 15 minutes. The two slowest drivers were eliminated, but later returned to contest the ‘wooden spoon’ fight.

The fastest eight drivers progressed into duels, broadcast live on YouTube. After quarter finals and semi finals, the field was eventually trimmed down to just two drivers, who went head to head in the finals.

How fast were the lap times?

The 10 influencers drove in the lower-power 300kW mode, although they had the luxury of all-wheel drive. The fastest time of the day was a 1m27.984s set by Behzinga in the afternoon qualifying session, before the pace dropped in cooler conditions during duels.

For comparison, Formula E drivers were lapping in the low 1m17s when they were in 300kW mode in qualifying groups. The fastest individual time of the weekend was a 1m15.060s, set by Jake Dennis, when he had 350kW on tap in his semi-final duel on Saturday.

Who crashed?

The Evo Sessions featured several crashes, as influencers with little background in motorsport tested their limits at Jeddah. WillNe brushed the wall exiting the chicane in main qualifying, while Arthur TV and Khaby all spun on their final laps.

The first big crash of the day was caused by Juca. The Spaniard was on course to better Behzinga’s qualifying time when he lost his Cupra Kiro rear-first into the final chicane. The damage left him out of the remainder of the Evo Sessions.

The heaviest impact, however, came in quarter finals when Izzy Hammond, who slammed head-on into the barriers at Turn 11. Hammond managed to escape the incident unscathed but had to visit the medical centre for mandatory checks.

Who won?

Joshua Larkin, who runs the YouTube channel TheBurntChip, won the 2026 Formula E Evo Sessions event in Jeddah.

The influencer-only contest boiled down to a straight between the ‘Chip’ and ‘Behzinga’ as they went head-to-head in the ‘Final’ duel. Behzinga (Ethan Payne) had set the fastest time in the main qualifying session but had an easy run in the duel stages, with the Briton getting a direct entry into the finale after crashes for Juca and Hammond left him with no rival in the semis. Meanwhile, Chip was only third-fastest in main qualifying but had shown incredible pace in his semi-final duel to take the challenge to Behzinga.

Behzinga upped the pace in the final to set a benchmark of 1m28.633s, but Chip pulled something special out the bag on his run, taking the top spot by four tenths of a second.

Senor Frogs easily took the teams’ title, thanks to both Behzinga and Chip making it to semi-finals. WillNe also purposely slowed down in his semi-final contest to hand the victory to Chip, who had been nominated by the team as its ‘double points’ driver. Chip, however, would have likely been faster nonetheless en route to the finals, where he beat Behzinga to take the overall win.

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– The Autosport.com Team