Porsche Crowned Formula E Manufacturers’ Champions as Dennis Takes Championship Lead in Tokyo

Nyck de Vries won the second Tokyo E-Prix of the weekend to score his second victory of the season, holding on through a late red flag and a one-lap sprint finish to beat Nick Cassidy by 0.683 seconds. Jake Dennis took the final podium spot in third, climbing from eighteenth on the grid, and moves into the outright lead of the Drivers’ Championship with just five points covering the top three heading into London. Porsche were confirmed as 2025/26 ABB FIA Formula E Manufacturers’ World Champions on the same afternoon. Jaguar TCS Racing’s gamble on wet tyre pressures backfired as the Tokyo circuit dried faster than forecast, with António Félix da Costa finishing fifteenth and Mitch Evans retiring on the final lap, though the team still leaves Japan with the Teams’ Championship lead intact heading into the season finale.

Key Points: Tokyo E-Prix Round 15

• Winner: Nyck de Vries (Mahindra Racing), second win of 2025/26
• Cassidy P2 for Citroën Racing, Dennis P3 for Andretti Formula E after climbing from eighteenth on the grid
• Porsche confirmed as 2025/26 ABB FIA Formula E Manufacturers’ World Champions
• Dennis takes the outright Drivers’ Championship lead on 146 points, with Evans on 144 and Wehrlein on 141. Five points cover the top three heading into London
• Jaguar TCS Racing’s wet tyre pressure gamble backfires as the track dries faster than forecast: da Costa finishes fifteenth, Evans retires on the final lap
• Jaguar retain the Teams’ Championship lead, 257 points to Porsche’s 243, heading into the London finale on 15-16 August

Race Recap: Tokyo E-Prix Round 15

Rain, a Cancelled Session and Limited Running

Heavy rain and thunderstorms through Sunday afternoon forced the cancellation of FP3, leaving qualifying as the first meaningful running of the day on a circuit still finding grip. Jean-Éric Vergne and Nick Cassidy narrowly missed out on the Duels for Citroën Racing, lining up twelfth and thirteenth. Dan Ticktum battled into the Semi-Finals for CUPRA KIRO to start third, with teammate Josep María Martí missing the Duels by 0.068 seconds to line up ninth. Taylor Barnard placed his DS E-TENSE FE25 fourth for DS Automobiles, teammate Maximilian Günther fourteenth. Zane Maloney and Lucas di Grassi both progressed through Group B for Lola Yamaha ABT, though penalties elsewhere in the field left them lining up fifteenth and nineteenth.

The Tyre Pressure Gamble

The race started behind the Safety Car in damp conditions, forcing every team to choose between a wet-biased or dry-biased tyre-pressure setup before the circuit had fully committed either way. Jaguar TCS Racing set both cars up for a wet race. António Félix da Costa led from the front after starting second, building a gap of more than four seconds while the surface stayed wet, and Mitch Evans climbed from seventh into the top five over the same phase. As the track dried faster than the team’s forecast suggested, the wet setup turned into a straight disadvantage, and both Jaguar drivers slipped out of the points.

CUPRA KIRO went the same way. Ticktum ran on full wet tyre pressures and lost grip as the track dried, sliding down the order before the final restart. Martí held station early to build an energy advantage but was pushed into the barriers by Sébastien Buemi on Lap 15, ending his race. DS Automobiles split its strategy instead. Barnard took his first Attack Mode after an early Full Course Yellow, passed his rivals into the lead and held it through the opening half before losing tyre performance as conditions improved. Günther went the other way, conserving energy for a late attack and firing both Attack Modes in quick succession to climb through the field. Lola Yamaha ABT backed drier pressures from the start and were 5 to 6 percent up on energy compared to the leaders once the track had dried, with di Grassi saving slightly more than Maloney in his teammate’s slipstream. Both were catching the field in the closing laps.

Red Flag and the One-Lap Sprint

A multi-car incident further down the field brought out the red flag with two laps remaining. Da Costa was caught up in the contact and forced to change his front wing, dropping him to the back of the field for the restart. Maloney and di Grassi had just taken their first and second Attack Modes back to back before the flag came out, losing the benefit of the second. Evans, who had already brushed the wall earlier in the race, retired his Jaguar on the final lap with the suspension issue that followed from it. The race resumed for a one-lap sprint to the flag. De Vries held on to beat Cassidy by 0.683 seconds, with Dennis completing the podium 0.958 seconds back after climbing from eighteenth on the grid.

Dennis’s climb from eighteenth was the story behind the story of the podium. He had been as much as 35 seconds off the lead earlier in the race, before the tyre-pressure call and a late Attack Mode brought him back to third by the flag.

Cassidy’s Second Podium in a Row

Cassidy’s second place made it back-to-back podiums for Citroën Racing, coming a day after the team paid tribute to Team Principal Cyril Blais, who passed away in the days before Round 14. He carved his way from thirteenth on the grid to the final sprint, and had the pace to hold off Dennis to the flag.

Race Classification:

Run over 34 laps and 87.6 kilometres. Pole position: Edoardo Mortara, Mahindra Racing. Fastest lap: Jake Dennis, Andretti Formula E, 1:14.528 on Lap 30.

Championship Picture

Porsche’s Manufacturers’ title was confirmed in Tokyo, but the Drivers’ and Teams’ championships both go to London wide open. Three drivers within five points at the top, and Jaguar’s lead in the Teams’ standings cut to fourteen.

Rest of the Grid

Jaguar TCS Racing: A Costly Gamble

Da Costa qualified on the front row and led the wet phase by more than four seconds, but the call on tyre pressures never recovered once the track dried. He finished fifteenth after the late contact forced a front wing change, and admitted afterwards that it hurt to lose a race he had the car to win, his pace dropping away the moment the track dried while those on drier pressures found theirs. Evans, up into the top five before the same swing in conditions, retired on the final lap after an early brush with the wall developed into a suspension failure.

DS Automobiles: A Double Top Ten That Undersold the Pace

Barnard led for a spell after his early Attack Mode and stayed at the front of the action through the opening half, before fading as the track dried faster than expected and his tyre performance dropped away. He was candid afterwards that the pace deserved more than the result showed, with drivers further back on drier pressures able to come through in the closing laps. Günther’s patience paid off in the closing laps, both Attack Modes fired in quick succession for a real fightback through the order, only for the red flag to cut his momentum right as he was making up ground. Both cars crossed the line inside the top ten.

Lola Yamaha ABT: Right Call, Wrong Timing

Maloney and di Grassi backed a drier strategy and built a real energy advantage over the leaders as the track came to them. Both were lapping several seconds a lap quicker than the leader after the Full Course Yellow on Lap 15 and had taken their first and second Attack Modes back to back in the closing laps when the red flag on Lap 33 cut the second short. With just one lap left to race after the restart, neither had the laps left to convert the pace into points. Team Principal Mark Preston framed it the same way afterwards, the gamble built on lessons from the team’s win in Shanghai, undone in the end by timing rather than the call itself.

CUPRA KIRO: The Wrong Side of the Same Bet

Ticktum started third and settled into an energy-saving rhythm on wet-weather pressures, but the grip disappeared as the track dried and he slid back through the order despite two Attack Mode activations. Martí was building his own energy advantage in the same phase before being forced into the barriers by Buemi on Lap 15, ending his race early. Team Principal Russell O’Hagan pointed to the same pattern seen across the weekend, with the track drying faster than predicted and catching much of the grid out, coming just a day after Ticktum’s win in Race 1.

Coffee Corner Take

Porsche’s title is confirmed. Everything else goes to London undecided.

Five points cover Dennis, Evans and Wehrlein. Nine different winners had shared the previous nine rounds, before De Vries became the first driver in that sequence to win again. On the same afternoon, the championship leader climbed from eighteenth on a track that punished the wrong tyre-pressure call all afternoon. Dennis did not need the fastest car in Tokyo. He needed the right tyre-pressure call, disciplined energy management and the patience to let the race come back to him. He got all three.

Jaguar will look back at this one and wonder what it cost them. Da Costa four seconds clear in the wet, Evans into the top five, both gone from the points by the flag because the rain didn’t arrive the way the forecast said it would. Neither driver lost this through pace or execution. The damage came from a weather call made before lights out, and it’s the kind of call a championship swings on. Ian James said it straight: still a stronger championship position than they arrived with, still leading the Teams’ fight. But fourteen points is not much of a cushion with two races still to run, and every point matters now.

CUPRA KIRO and Jaguar made the same read on the weather and it cost them both. Lola Yamaha ABT and DS Automobiles read it the other way and still finished outside the numbers their pace deserved, undone by a red flag that arrived two laps too early for either of them. That’s Formula E in the wet. The tyre pressure call decides more of the race than anything a driver does once the lights go out.

London decides it now. Two races, one weekend, three drivers within five points and a Teams’ Championship still live for at least two teams. Nobody arrives at the finale with a cushion.