Dennis Wins Chaotic Sanya E-Prix as Da Costa’s Best Drive of the Season Goes Unrewarded

Jake Dennis won Round 11 of the 2026 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in Sanya from pole, his second victory of the season, only for the stewards to strip Felipe Drugovich of second place with a post-race penalty. Formula E returned to Hainan Island for the first time since 2019 and produced a red flag, two Full Course Yellow periods and a result that bears almost no resemblance to how the afternoon started. Mitch Evans was not classified after a heavy hit from behind and a major pileup at the hairpin left his Jaguar needing a new wishbone and tyres, yet he still leads the Drivers’ Championship by 19 points. His teammate António Félix da Costa made the most of it, surging from tenth to lead the race by Lap 24 before a post-race penalty dropped him to fourth. Oliver Rowland led after the restart before hitting the wall. Pepe Martí climbed from 18th on the grid, through a red flag restart from 19th, to claim his best result of the season. Nyck de Vries set the fastest lap of the race and finished third. Sanya did not produce the race anyone expected from the grid.

Key Points: 2026 Lianxin Sanya E-Prix Race Report

• Winner: Jake Dennis (Andretti Formula E), from pole, second win of the season. Andretti’s maiden 1-2 on track undone when the stewards stripped Drugovich of second place
• Martí finished second, his best result of the season. Climbed from 18th on the grid, restarted 19th after the red flag, took his final Attack Mode on Lap 35 to charge to the podium
• De Vries set the fastest lap of the race and finished third. Da Costa and Drugovich were both moved down the order by post-race penalties, finishing fourth and fifth
• Evans was not classified after being hit from behind and caught in a multicar pileup at the hairpin on Lap 19 that triggered the red flag, his Jaguar needing a new rear wishbone and tyres. He still leads the Drivers’ Championship by 19 points over Rowland.
• Rowland led after the restart on saved energy and Attack Mode before hitting the wall. Nato hit from behind and into the wall in the same charge through the order. Neither Nissan scored
• Cassidy led for three laps from P6 before a braking issue forced a pit lane return, followed by a speeding penalty that left him not classified

Race Recap: 2026 Lianxin Sanya E-Prix

Before the Lights

Formula E had not raced at Sanya since 2019, and the grid reflected a weekend where penalties had already reshaped the starting order before a wheel turned in anger. Dennis started from pole, with Drugovich alongside him, an Andretti front row lockout. Evans lined up third, Cassidy sixth, Rowland tenth, da Costa twelfth, Vergne thirteenth, Barnard fifteenth after a post-qualifying penalty, Nato sixteenth, Martí eighteenth despite qualifying fourteenth, and Günther nineteenth after a penalty of his own. As previewed, nobody on the grid had GEN3 Evo race data for this circuit. That uncertainty showed almost immediately.

Andretti Lead, Cassidy Makes His Move

Dennis and Drugovich led away from the front row and worked together early, dictating the pace through the opening phase. Evans was fighting firmly in the lead pack from third on the grid, while da Costa worked his way out of twelfth into the midfield. Cassidy was the standout of the early laps. Starting sixth, the New Zealander used an effective strategy and well-timed Attack Mode to work his way through to the front, leading the race for three laps. Martí, starting from eighteenth after his Monaco grid penalty carried over, was making ground of his own, overtaking Barnard and Nato in the opening laps to move up to sixteenth before settling into an energy-saving strategy rather than pushing for more straight away.

The Hairpin Accident and the Red Flag

The race turned on what happened to Evans. Running firmly in the lead pack, he was hit from behind, then collected in a multicar pileup at the hairpin on Lap 19 that brought out the red flag. The contact left his Jaguar with damage to its rear tyres and wishbone. Ticktum, involved in the same incident, sustained extensive front-end damage of his own. Martí had already suffered damage in an unavoidable accident of his own at Turn 9 before the stoppage, having fought up to twelfth on his first Attack Mode. Jaguar worked under serious time pressure during the red flag to repair Evans’ car, replacing the rear wishbone and tyres, but the championship leader was forced to restart from the pit lane a lap down. Da Costa, who had used the stoppage to good effect, resumed in tenth. Both CUPRA KIRO cars lined up eighteenth and nineteenth for the restart after their own red flag repairs.

The Restart: Rowland’s Charge, Nato’s Wall

Nissan had built their entire race around this moment. Rowland and Nato had saved energy through the first half specifically to attack after a stoppage, and when the red flag period ended that strategy paid off within minutes. Rowland used his extra energy and Attack Mode to take the lead. Nato worked his way into the top four in the same charge. Then it unravelled for both of them. Nato was hit from behind by another driver, sent into the wall, his promising race over in an instant. A few laps later, while still battling towards the front, Rowland made an unforced error of his own and hit the wall. The strategy that should have delivered Nissan’s best result of the weekend delivered nothing.

Cassidy’s afternoon also turned on the restart. After leading for three laps in the first half, he encountered an issue affecting his car’s braking system following the resumption and was forced to return to the pits. A subsequent speeding penalty in the pit lane compounded the problem. Despite the pace he had shown earlier in the day, Cassidy was not classified at the finish.

Da Costa’s Surge to the Front

Da Costa delivered the standout drive of the restart. From tenth, he used his Attack Mode deployments to full effect, working through the field and taking the lead by Lap 24 with a gap of over two seconds. He had qualified twelfth and was running in the midfield before the red flag. By the closing stages he was rotating positions at the front with the leading group, fighting for the win rather than scrapping for points. Contact with a rival in the closing laps brought a 5-second penalty that would settle his final position long after the chequered flag had fallen.

Martí’s Climb and the Late Attack Mode

From nineteenth at the restart, Martí used the additional energy banked through the red flag period to move back into the top ten. He activated his final Attack Mode on Lap 35, a decision the team debated over timing before committing, and the charge carried him all the way to second in the final classification. His best result of the season, and a second podium in successive race weekends, from a grid position that gave him almost no right to expect either.

Andretti’s 1-2 and the Penalty

Dennis and Drugovich had dropped into the pack through the middle of the race before deploying Attack Mode later than their rivals, a call that proved decisive in the final third. Both Andretti cars stamped their authority on the run to the flag, crossing the line first and second for what was, on track, the team’s maiden 1-2 finish in the championship. The stewards spent the rest of the evening picking that result apart. Drugovich was found to have caused contact with Wehrlein at Turn 9 and dropped to fifth.

De Vries, having set the fastest lap of the race at 1:08.455 on Lap 35, kept his own result clean of any stewards’ attention and was classified third. Da Costa’s afternoon went the other way. Fourth by the time the paperwork caught up with him, the result tells you almost nothing about how good the drive actually was.

Final Classification: 2026 Lianxin Sanya E-Prix

Standings Snapshot – After Round 11

From the Podium

Rest of the Grid

CUPRA KIRO: Martí’s Podium, Ticktum’s Lost Afternoon

Ticktum settled into a consistent rhythm early, activating his first Attack Mode on Lap 10 to rejoin in ninth before moving into the lead with the extra power. He was shuffled back into the pack and then sustained extensive front-end damage in the contact with Evans at the hairpin when the field bunched up. He finished fifteenth after a 10-second penalty for the collision, served during a pit stop, with a further penalty converted into a 3-place grid drop for Shanghai. Team Principal Russell O’Hagan called the weekend an emotional rollercoaster, pointing to Ticktum’s qualifying pace and the frustration of seeing both cars caught up in incidents before Martí’s late charge delivered a second consecutive podium and his best result of the season, lifting him to 11th in the Drivers’ Championship and the team to eighth in the Teams’ standings.

Citroën Racing: Vergne’s Patience, Cassidy’s Unravelling

Cassidy was one of the standout performers of the first half, working his way to the front from sixth on the grid through effective strategy and Attack Mode use, leading the race for three laps. The red flag changed everything. After the restart he encountered a braking system issue, was forced to return to the pit lane, and a subsequent speeding penalty in the pit lane prevented him from being classified at the finish despite the pace he had shown.

Vergne built his race patiently from thirteenth in an extremely compact field, climbing to the fringes of the top five during the closing stages through effective energy management. Initially classified ninth, he was promoted to eighth once penalties further up the order were applied, securing four points. Team Principal Cyril Blais said the conditions, between the heat, the red flag and the multiple neutralisations, created a real challenge for the entire grid.

Nissan: Strategy That Deserved Better

Neither Rowland nor Nato made it through the Duels in qualifying, starting tenth and sixteenth respectively. The team’s strategy to save energy through the first half of the race and attack later worked exactly as planned at the restart, Rowland taking the lead within minutes and Nato moving into the top four. Nato was hit from behind by another driver and sent into the wall. Rowland, still battling towards the front a few laps later, made an unforced error of his own and hit the wall. Extreme heat and humidity across the Hainan weekend had already made it a difficult event for the team before either incident.

DS PENSKE: Günther’s Recovery, Barnard’s Lost Podium

Günther started nineteenth after a post-qualifying penalty and was fourteenth at the restart. He maximised his Attack Mode through the second half to finish sixth, a result some way better than the grid suggested he would get. Barnard, starting fifteenth after a penalty of his own, lost several minutes of Attack Mode availability to a Full Course Yellow procedure and finished ninth, short of the podium fight he believed was possible. Günther’s own reaction, quoted below, reflects the provisional standing on the day before the final FIA classification settled his result at sixth.

Jaguar TCS Racing: Evans Out, Da Costa’s Race That Almost Was

Evans started third and was battling firmly in the lead pack when he was hit from behind. The multicar pileup at the hairpin that triggered the red flag compounded the damage, leaving his Jaguar needing a new rear wishbone and tyres. Jaguar’s mechanics worked under serious time pressure during the stoppage, but the championship leader was forced to restart from the pit lane a lap down and was not classified at the finish, completing 38 of the race’s 39 laps. By his own account he had six minutes of Attack Mode left and good energy in hand when the contact happened, the kind of position a driver rarely gets back once it is gone.

Da Costa was the man who made Evans’ bad day survivable. From tenth at the restart, his Attack Mode timing was close to perfect, and by Lap 24 he was leading outright with two seconds in hand. Team Principal Ian James was blunt about the penalty that followed, the stewards’ call cost the team a result it had earned on track, even as he credited the repair crew’s work on Evans’ car as something to be proud of regardless of how the day ended.

Evans is still 19 clear at the top, and Jaguar’s Teams’ lead has grown to 30. The numbers say the weekend cost the team almost nothing. The afternoon itself said otherwise.

Lola Yamaha ABT and Porsche Formula E Team

Di Grassi’s tenth was a third straight points finish for Lola Yamaha ABT. Maloney took eleventh despite his role in the hairpin pileup, and carries a grid drop into Shanghai for it. Müller led the Porsche cars home in seventh, well clear of a quiet Wehrlein in fourteenth, but it was Dennis who did the heavy lifting for Porsche’s powertrain in the Manufacturers’ table.

Coffee Corner Take

Nobody can get a hold of this championship, and Sanya is exhibit one. Eight different winners from the first nine rounds going into this weekend. Dennis has now won twice, and the chasing pack behind him cannot put together back-to-back results to save their lives. Every time a driver looks like they have built something solid, the next race tears it back down, and Sanya did that to almost everyone who arrived with momentum.

Evans was not classified. He still leads by 19 points. That should not be possible in a championship this unpredictable, and it is the clearest sign yet that consistency is worth more this season than speed. He is not winning these weekends. He is surviving them, and surviving them is enough while everyone behind him keeps finding new ways to lose ground. Rowland led, then put himself into a wall. Mortara and Wehrlein scored nothing. Whatever Evans is doing, it is working precisely because the chaos keeps landing on somebody else.

That should worry the chasing pack more than it does. A 19-point gap built almost entirely on other drivers’ bad days is not a fortress, it is a string of near misses that has not been called yet. Da Costa proved exactly how thin that margin is. Tenth to leading the race within five laps of the restart, one of the sharpest cars in the race phase, and a penalty was all it took to turn that into a result that flatters nobody. If da Costa drives like that again at Shanghai, Evans is going to need more than other people’s misfortune to hold the gap.

Martí’s second place is the one that should make the rest of the grid uncomfortable. Eighteenth on the grid, damage before the red flag, nineteenth at the restart, and somehow a podium at the end of it for the second weekend running. That is not a fluke repeating itself. CUPRA KIRO have worked out how to make street circuit chaos work for them rather than against them, and nobody else on the grid looks close to figuring out the same trick.

Dennis is the only driver this season who has actually looked like he controls his own results rather than benefiting from somebody else’s. Two wins, both from pole, both built on patience rather than chaos. If this title is going to be decided by someone driving their way to it rather than inheriting it, he is the only name on the list right now.

It keeps happening. A race rewrites the story the last one told, and the next one rewrites that too. The standings say Evans is in control. The racing says nobody is. Shanghai is a fortnight away, and at this rate it will not settle anything either.