Jeddah E-Prix 2026 Race Report: Da Costa Times ATTACK MODE To Claim First Jaguar Win

Round 5 at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit removed the safety net. Friday’s race had PIT BOOST, the mandatory fast-charging pit stop that hands back ten percent energy and gives teams a structured reset mid-race. Saturday had none of that. Two ATTACK MODE activations, a fixed energy window, and once both were spent, the race was whatever you had built it to be. António Félix da Costa read that earlier than anyone. By the time the second activation cycle closed, the Portuguese driver had clear air, a 2.5-second margin, and his first win for Jaguar, the team’s second victory of Season 12.

Key Points – Jeddah E-Prix 2026 Round 5 results

• António Félix da Costa wins for Jaguar TCS Racing, his first since the 2024 Portland E-Prix
• Sébastien Buemi finishes second, Oliver Rowland third on his 100th Formula E start
• Five different race winners from five rounds in Season 12
• No PIT BOOST in Round 5, ATTACK MODE sequencing decides the outcome
• CUPRA KIRO score their first double points finish of the season: Ticktum P5, Martí P6
• Wehrlein leads the championship on 68 points, Mortara 62, Rowland 49

The Race Without A Safety Net

Friday’s race had a reset built in. Activate early, pit, recharge, rejoin. The sequence could be repaired. Saturday removed that entirely. Two mandatory 350kW all-wheel-drive ATTACK MODE windows. Spend them well, you move forward. Spend them wrong, you manage what’s left.

With multiple drivers trading the lead in the opening phase, Buemi, Rowland and Mortara all hitting the front at various points, no one controlled the race early. Everyone was waiting for someone else to commit first.

Da Costa committed first. But he committed to the right thing.

Da Costa’s Window

Starting third on the grid, he was the first in the lead group to trigger both mandatory ATTACK MODE activations. That sounds aggressive. It wasn’t. It was precise.

The first activation gave him track position. The second, through the overlap, gave him margin. His rivals didn’t simply fall back. They ran out of the energy headroom needed to respond. Buemi’s own words confirmed it: da Costa managed more, went flat out longer, and that’s where the gap came from.

By the time the cycle closed, the gap was 2.677 seconds. Nobody had the energy picture left to close it.

“I knew when I had a little bit of a gap and ATTACK MODE over my rivals that only a big drama could really take this away from us,” da Costa said. He kept asking the pit wall if he needed to manage the alarms flashing on his dash. They told him to acknowledge them and crack on.

He did. Win secured.

Buemi And Rowland Fill The Podium

Buemi started seventh and made a deliberate call early. The Envision Racing driver pushed to the front, using clean air to protect his car from the mid-pack fighting behind. He saved slightly less energy doing it and acknowledged da Costa simply managed more.

“DAC did a mega job saving more. He was able to go flat out a bit longer than me and that’s why he made that gap,” Buemi said.

Second place from seventh on the grid, on a weekend where he had struggled in qualifying, was a result to take without argument.

Rowland completed the podium on his 100th Formula E start. Starting fourth, the Nissan driver led early, managed energy tightly through the first phase, and used his final ATTACK MODE to move into the top three and hold it.

A different driver after Friday night’s setup overhaul from his engineers. After two races where he felt he had no pace at all, third was the response he needed.

Mortara, CUPRA KIRO And The Rest

Edoardo Mortara claimed back-to-back pole positions this weekend but converted neither into a win. Fourth in Round 5. The Mahindra driver was in the fight throughout but found himself on the wrong side of the ATTACK MODE split when it mattered.

The team felt more was available. The points haul was solid. The feeling afterwards wasn’t.

CUPRA KIRO had their best day of the season. Dan Ticktum started ninth, made up ground immediately, ran efficiently through the opening phase and used both activations to move and then hold fifth. Pepe Martí did the same from further back, 14th on the grid to sixth, setting fastest lap along the way.

Their first double points finish of Season 12.

The team also had a moment late on when the two cars ran very close together, something team principal Russell O’Hagan was direct about needing to never happen again. Martí issued a public apology after the race for language used on team radio.

Mitch Evans took seventh for Jaguar from 13th on the grid. Wehrlein, carrying the championship lead, started 11th and could only manage eighth as Friday’s winner found the weekend’s second race less kind.

Vergne scored points in ninth for Citroën, while Taylor Barnard took tenth, Günther eleventh. DS PENSKE left Jeddah with one point from each race, well below their own expectations. Nick Cassidy finished sixteenth. A weekend to move past quickly.

Away From The Track

The Jeddah weekend drew a strong celebrity crowd to the Formula E EMOTION Club. Riyad Mahrez attended with wife Taylor Ward alongside Al-Ahli teammate and England striker Ivan Toney.

Both EVO Sessions teams were also in Jeddah watching Round 5 from the EMOTION Club ahead of tomorrow’s event. Building on last year’s gathering that drew Brooklyn Beckham, Sergio Agüero and MrBeast, the world’s biggest creators get behind the wheel of the GEN3 Evo car for the first time.

Team Señor Frogs and Team QuickStars go head to head at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. It streams live on Formula E’s official YouTube channel from 15:30 GMT on February 15.

Final Classification – Jeddah E-Prix 2026 Round 5

Standings Snapshot

Coffee Corner Take

Five races. Five different winners. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a championship still completely open in early February.

Da Costa got his first Jaguar win by doing what Round 5 demanded: reading the ATTACK MODE window before anyone else did and not flinching when he had it. The race without PIT BOOST is a different animal. There’s no structured reset. No recharge waiting in the pit lane. Once both activations are spent, the race is whatever you’ve made of it.

Da Costa made 2.677 seconds of it. That was enough.

Mortara had pole. Again. He still doesn’t have the win to go with it. Back-to-back pole positions at Jeddah and two results that didn’t reflect his pace. The speed is real. The conversion isn’t there yet. Six points separate him from Wehrlein. That gap will feel longer than it looks if Madrid goes the same way.

Rowland’s podium mattered beyond the points. His 100th Formula E start had been a difficult build-up. Friday’s race was miserable by his own admission. The team stayed late, changed significant setup, and he delivered third the next afternoon. That’s what a works team relationship looks like when it functions. Nissan needed that. He needed it more.

The Verstappen-Dodds exchange this week was the kind of moment money can’t buy. When a four-time Formula 1 world champion uses your championship as a reference point, even critically, you’re in the conversation. Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds’ open test offer to Verstappen in the GEN4 car was the right response. No defensiveness. Just confidence.

Formula E doesn’t need to argue with Formula 1 any more. It just needs to keep producing races like this.

Arvid Lindblad in the Nissan garage, watching Rowland operate, is the clearest sign yet of where the conversation between Formula E and Formula 1 is actually happening. Not in press releases. Not in public debates. In garages. In data. In racecraft.

Madrid on March 21st. Six different winners from six rounds is entirely possible.