How Rowland delivered on Nissan’s home turf to mark himself as Formula E champion in waiting

The second Tokyo E-Prix of the weekend was a masterclass in poise and patience from runaway championship leader Oliver Rowland, who delivered Nissan a fairytale home win on a hot and humid day, shorn of any of the rain of Saturday.

It was Rowland’s fourth victory of the season, after his third pole in Tokyo, and it was a performance that cemented his status as champion in waiting. Rowland’s points tally has ballooned to 161, nearly double that of second-placed Pascal Wehrlein (84) and more than that of Wehrlein and third-placed Antonio Felix Da Costa combined.

At the start Rowland launched cleanly from pole, but his early laps didn’t necessarily suggest a straightforward win. Dan Ticktum had pushed Rowland hard in the qualifying final and the Kiro driver retained race composure, after his pole aspirations had clattered against the barrier in the final sector of his lap, to drive his best race of the season.

Ticktum was first to take the battle to Rowland after withstanding the early attentions of Wehrlein’s Porsche off the line, but thereafter the Porsche-powered pairing worked largely in conjunction to take the fight to the title leader.

While Rowland bided his time with his Attack Mode deployment, Ticktum took to the task first and was past Rowland on lap eight. That sparked a mid-race shuffle that saw Wehrlein, Taylor Barnard, and Nick Cassidy all overtake Rowland as he held off activating his first Attack Mode.

By lap 17, Rowland had dropped to sixth before finally activating his first power-up, leaving the Nissan driver banking on a bold late six-minute Attack Mode strategy. The gamble paid off. Rowland repaid Cassidy’s earlier move almost instantly and began to carve his way back through the front group as others took their final Attack Mode activations.

“I didn’t do a good job on the first Attack Mode and regretted being stuck further down the field, so I knew I had to take a risk when using the final six minutes,” explained Rowland. “I felt like I’d been undercut so went early and it paid off as we got back into the lead.”

Rowland’s critical pass came on lap 22 with a storming move around the outside of Wehrlein, who squeezed Rowland hard between Turns 15 and 16.

Ticktum’s qualifying form had already set the tone for his standout day, as he beat Edoardo Mortara and Wehrlein before pushing Rowland hard in the final part of qualifying. He led laps, managed energy smartly, and looked in prime position to challenge late — until the safety car neutralised the final few laps following Mortara’s nudge on Barnard, which ended with the McLaren rookie in the wall.

“I’m a little bit frustrated, honestly, because there was for sure a podium in my hands,” mused Barnard. “I don’t really blame Edo. It was just one of those moments where everyone backs up. I had to avoid the car in front. He then had to try and avoid someone, and when it’s so late he has to crash into the back of someone, and unfortunately, it was me.”

It was Ticktum’s maiden Formula E podium on a weekend where he retained uncharacteristic composure on track and on the radio.

“It feels pretty good,” he said. “I’m already like ‘if we had done this or done that’ I could have won, but I’m very happy overall and it’s a big boost for the team. I just don’t feel like we’ve ever had a breakthrough this season and that’s it. We’re really competing consistently at the top now across all conditions and the team executed a pretty flawless weekend – so I’m happy.”

Wehrlein meanwhile wasn’t fully happy with second: “Probably if I was looking more at the championship, I wouldn’t be so disappointed about P2, but I’m just looking race to race. And today I feel like we could have won. I could have won, and that’s why I’m not super happy.

“I did everything right and probably we need to analyse what we could have done better, but still, second is a good result with Dan in P3. It’s a very strong day for our package, which on the other side makes all of us happy.”

Podium: Race winner Oliver Rowland, Nissan Formula E Team, second place Pascal Wehrlein, TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, third place Dan Ticktum, Kiro Race Co

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

Behind the lead three, Saturday black-flag recipient Jake Dennis delivered one of the drives of the day — rising from 14th on the grid to finish fourth. He was precise in traffic, made the most of both Attack Mode activations, and passed Rowland and Mortara with clinical efficiency during the peak phase of his second stint. It was a classic Dennis recovery drive.

“The strategy worked really well to be honest,” said Dennis. “The first attack was very powerful for us to get up to, I think, P5 or something like that. So yeah, ultimately, super pleased. I felt like we deserved those points after such a good race pace all weekend. We don’t think we had the fourth quickest car, but ultimately, we extracted what we could from it.”

Lucas di Grassi followed up his strong qualifying pace with a composed run to fifth – not a bad showcase for the assembled Yamaha top brass on site.

“We had the whole board from Yamaha here, so it was important. But more than that, the car had pace. It’s the car’s first year and we are up here fighting cars that have been here for six or eight years. I’m actually very happy to have scored 28 points so far.”

Jean-Eric Vergne was quietly effective, finishing sixth after another solid weekend for DS Penske, while Cassidy’s race pace as the sole Jaguar was strong – charging from 13th to fifth before fading to seventh at the flag.

Mitch Evans was meanwhile a frustrated bystander after clattering the barriers in qualifying with the squad unable to repair it in time for the start to add to a season he’d very much want to forget.

“I can’t even describe the feeling,” said round one winner Evans. “I’ve never really experienced this in my career before. I’ve had some really good years, but this level of bad luck or however you want to look at it is pretty demoralising.”

Car of Mitch Evans, Jaguar TCS Racing

Photo by: Andreas Beil

For the race winner however, seemingly nothing could go wrong.

“Obviously, I’ve been on a fantastic streak of results,” confirmed Rowland. “I keep wondering if at some point I’m going to wake up and find that this isn’t the reality. But it comes at a great time for me, and a really pivotal time, obviously, for the championship and everything else, but full credit to my team. They were able to improve the package significantly between season 10 and 11, which allows us to fight a little bit easier.”

Formula E Tokyo E-Prix II – race results