Winners and Losers: Shanghai E-Prix
- DIVEBOMB Motorsport
- Jun 8
- 11 min read
Written by Vyas Ponnuri and Elodie O’Callaghan
It was a mixed bag for several drivers last time out in Shanghai, with newer faces rising up the ladder, while teams made giant strides and major gains during the weekend. Vyas and Elodie take you through the winners and losers from Formula E’s Shanghai E-Prix.
Winners: DS Penske
The DS Penske team have had a quietly strong season. Despite not always fighting at the front, they have consistently scored strong points every weekend. Before Shanghai, Max Günther had recorded one win, converting pole position in the first race of the Jeddah doubleheader. His teammate Jean-Éric Vergne had yet to secure a podium, but had scored points in all but two of the first nine races of the season.
Günther had been a dark horse going into qualifying. He only finished fourth in free practice two, and he was off the radar of many. However, his car simply came alive in qualifying. Topping his qualifying group by almost three tenths, he then dispatched Oliver Rowland and Nick Cassidy in the duels by comfortable margins.
His final opponent was McLaren’s Taylor Barnard in the final. Günther laid down a blistering lap, beating Barnard by almost four tenths of a second, setting the new track record. His teammate Jean-Éric Vergne, meanwhile, failed to make it out of the group stages, and would start tenth.
In the race, Günther relinquished the lead in turn one after a brilliant move around the outside by Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein. He would remain battling for the top spots throughout the race. A smart strategy from DS Penske put him on for the win, as the German chased down Oliver Rowland’s Nissan.
With 30 seconds more on his attack mode over Rowland, Günther made the move for the lead in the closing laps. While drivers behind squabbled for the podium places, Günther streaked ahead and won the race triumphantly, with a comfortable seven-second gap to second place.
Meanwhile, teammate Vergne had been carving his way through the field and found himself in the aforementioned squabble for the podium places. On the last lap, Vergne was fighting with Cupra Kiro’s Dan Ticktum as well as Taylor Barnard. Going into the final chicane, Vergne made a daring double overtake on both drivers to secure second place, sealing DS Penske’s maiden one-two finish.
Losers: Jake Dennis
Season 9 champion Jake Dennis has had an up-and-down Season 11, and was fighting within the top ten of the championship thanks to a relatively consistent run of points finishes this season, of which the best result was a podium in Monaco.
In race one at Shanghai Dennis would start seventh, and he remained in the top ten early on, fighting competitively among the pack in what was a traditional peloton-style race. However, through the Pit Boost cycle, the Brit fell to the back of the pack.
Andretti had planned to save the Attack Mode activations for the end of the E-Prix, before using the extra power to hopefully climb through the pack, however, this did not come to fruition, and due to what the team described as “energy-limiting factors,” they could not make the necessary progress, and winded up in a disappointing 17th place.
In race two, torrential conditions presented a completely different challenge. Dennis would start 18th after qualifying was cut short. Whilst most of the field activated their attack modes on the first lap, the Andretti team elected to wait, instead trying to create an offset whereby they could use attack modes later in the race, which could render their opponents as sitting ducks to their more highly-powered cars.
Dennis recovered to 12th but unfortunately, an excursion at turn seven lost him many places that he couldn’t recover, and he came home in 17th place for the second time of the weekend. A disappointing end to what was a promising weekend for the British driver.
Winner - Taylor Barnard
McLaren’s Taylor Barnard has had a breakout season. Coming into his first full Formula E season as a baby-faced 20 year old, his team assured him that there were “no expectations,” instead focusing on getting him up to speed in what is an incredibly technical series.
Despite his record-setting podiums and poles, Barnard hasn’t quite had a successful ‘triple header’, indicative of his McLaren car, which has had large swings in performance from track to track.
Going into Shanghai, Barnard was searching for his elusive maiden win, as despite finishing on the podium four times, the top spot remained unclaimed by the Norwich driver. In race one, Barnard would start second, missing out on pole to Günther in the duels final. He would slip to third on the start as Wehrlein passed both him and Günther for the lead.
His team managed the strategy well, and despite falling back through the Attack Mode and Pit Boost sequences, he was able to come through the field and found himself in the fight for the podium. The Briton scrapped away with Ticktum and Vergne on the final lap, and while Vergne moved on both drivers to take second, Barnard was able to hold off Ticktum through the final complex of corners to take the last spot on the podium.
In race two, intense rain brought a premature end to qualifying, and it meant Barnard was forced to start 14th. He made a few places up in the race, though the torrential conditions and drawn-out field made overtaking difficult. He came home in 10th and thus scored a solitary world championship point. His efficient weekend earns him a spot on the winners table this week.
Losers: Zane Maloney
It might be a surprise to put Lola’s Zane Maloney in this section, given he recorded his best Formula E finish in 11th for the Italian marque, more impressively in his rookie campaign in the championship.
Yet, this weekend had the potential to be much more. A maiden points finish looked to be on the cards in round 11, when Maloney took advantage of a wet qualifying to record his best starting position of the season in 11th. The boy from Barbados drove a smart race, making up a position on de Vries and taking advantage of Günther’s retirement to move into the top ten.
Yet, despite his efficient driving, the rookie simply wouldn’t have the pace to convert this into a top ten. While Envision’s Robin Frijns cycled ahead after taking his attack modes, staying ahead, a charging Barnard utilised his attack modes towards the end of the race, with Maloney toothless to fend off the McLaren man, having used up both his allocations of attack mode.
He would eventually finish almost six seconds behind Barnard, and his search for his maiden Formula E points will only continue, as Maloney heads into the final three weekends of 2025.
Winner: Nick Cassidy
Nick Cassidy’s season looks to be picking up momentum as the season goes along, and the Kiwi certainly showcased his prowess in the rain with yet another defining drive on a rainy Sunday in Shanghai.
Having qualified a lofty fourth for Round 10, the New Zealander was caught out in an opening lap incident with Edoardo Mortara and Jean-Éric Vergne, spinning on the final corner. Despite recovering and continuing, he finished last of the classified finishers, 50 seconds off race winner Günther.
But it was on Sunday when the Jaguar man truly found his groove, continuing his stellar form in wet-weather races. Cassidy’s prowess in rain-affected races has been well-known, with victories in London in 2023 and New York in 2021, and a podium in changing conditions in Monaco earlier in 2025.
On a day when several drivers found the conditions treacherous and struggled to keep their cars pointing in a straight line, Cassidy managed to put his car on pole by a comfortable margin, in gradually worsening conditions. During the 31-lap race, he instantly pulled away, leading by over ten seconds mid-race.
The gap to Pascal Wehrlein in second eventually stabilised at seven seconds. Yet, the reigning champion proved no match to the Jaguar man in the wet, as Cassidy was unfazed on his way to victory.
A season-defining victory for both driver and team, and this marks Cassidy’s fourth points-scoring finish in Formula E’s latest ‘triple header’, elevating him to seventh in the championship standings.
Losers: Mitch Evans
Mitch Evans has had a nightmare Season 11, so far. Despite winning the opening race in Sao Paulo, the Kiwi driver has otherwise failed to score a point all season. His team, Jaguar, are a far cry from the performances that won them the teams’ championship in Season 10, and they currently sit eighth out of eleven teams.
Unfortunately, in Shanghai, qualifying for race one just showed more of the same, only managing 18th place. Additionally, having changed several components for the weekend, Evans was awarded an 80-place grid penalty for Round 10 on Saturday. As per Formula E’s rules, being unable to serve the entire grid penalty (as there are obviously not 80 grid positions), he had to serve a 10-second stop-go penalty for the race.
This immediately curtailed any chances Evans had of fighting for the win, even if his car was competitive. The New Zealander would finish the race second-last, 43 seconds behind the winner Max Günther.
The Jaguar driver did not have a penalty to serve for race two, and thus was free to fight as high as he could get his car. In qualifying, the pace shown the previous day was improved slightly, and he qualified in 13th place.
This was a curtailed session, and the results may not be purely representative of their true pace, but it was still an improvement. However, this did not feel like a win for Evans, as his teammate Cassidy would start on pole. In the rain-soaked conditions, Evans failed to make any progress, in fact slipping backwards to finish 14th. Yet another pointless weekend for the New Zealander, and he will hope his fortunes finally start to turn around in Jakarta.
Winner: Porsche
Porsche had a difficult race one on Saturday in Shanghai. Wehrlein started third, and through a brave move around the first corner, took the lead of the race. Unfortunately, he was not able to consistently remain at the head of the pack, and faded to 12th following the first Attack Mode activation. He recovered into the top ten, but slipped back yet again through the second Attack and Pit Boost sequences. Unfortunately for him and the team, he only managed a 12th place finish, failing to score points.
Meanwhile, teammate António Félix Da Costa came home just behind Wehrlein in 13th place, however, he was recovering from 17th on the grid, and thus did not experience a disappointing drop through the grid like his teammate did. The Porsche team stated that the highly complex nature of the strategy, having to combine a Pit Boost stop with a peloton-style energy saving race, plus the factors of Attack Mode strategy, proved too difficult for the team to work out, and they consequently settled outside of the top ten.
Race two was far more successful for the German marque. Locked in an intensely close battle for the teams’ championship with Nissan, they needed every point they could get. A curtailed qualifying meant that the Porsche pair would start second and third, with Da Costa lining up on the front row alongside Cassidy.
Cassidy led away from the start, and the Porsches stayed in tow, the front three gapping the rest of the field. However, as the Attack Mode strategy unfolded, da Costa was overtaken by his teammate and began to lose touch with the front two. The duo would come home second and third, both finishing on the podium for the third time in 2025. Coupled with Nissan’s failure to score, Porsche now leads the championship by a single point ahead of their Japanese rivals.
Losers: Nissan
It would be rare to find Nissan, or either of its drivers, in this section of our article. Such has been their sheer dominance, the team able to lead the constructors’ standings despite Norman Nato’s points drought in season 11.
But the Shanghai double header exposed the frailties of the team in the event of poor qualifying or a lack of pace across the weekend. Having qualified sixth on the grid, the first time Rowland hadn’t started on pole since round 8 in Monaco, the Nissan man exhausted his attack modes earlier than most, leaving him a sitting duck to the chasing pack behind.
He simply couldn’t fend off a chasing Taylor Barnard’s McLaren, who arguably pulled off an exhilarating overtake in the sweeping turns 7 and 8, moving up into the podium positions. The likes of Vergne and Cupra Kiro’s Dan Ticktum, too moved ahead, using their attack modes well.
Rowland took home fifth, while Nato recovered from 15th on the grid to finish right behind his championship-leading teammate, in sixth, grabbing eight valuable points in the constructors’ battle.
The tide would shift on Sunday, though. A wet qualifying left both Nissan drivers down in 17th and 21st on the road. With both drivers failing to score after 31 laps, and both Porsche drivers Wehrlein and da Costa netting podiums, the German manufacturer moved ahead in the championship standings, albeit only by one point to Nissan.
As for Rowland's championship lead was slashed to 68 points, which means the first opportunity to seal a drivers’ crown will come only in the Berlin E-Prix weekend in July.
Winner: Jake Hughes
Jake Hughes grabbed his first points since the Jeddah E-Prix in February, putting an end to a torrid streak of non-scores that had swelled to six races.
The Maserati man has suffered from plenty of misfortune and poor luck over the last three months. A crash in Miami, coupled with the team’s questionable attack mode strategies in Monaco and Tokyo, meant Hughes often finished well adrift of the pack, including slowing on the final lap to avoid a post-race penalty for not utilising his eight minutes of attack mode in round 9 in Tokyo.
It appeared to be more of the same for Hughes as he failed to convert a ninth-place start in round 10 at Shanghai, with a Pit Boost charger failure scuppering both Hughes and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne’s chances at points. The Briton eventually finished 16th on the road.
But it was in the wet round 11 on Sunday when Hughes thrived. Qualifying fifth in a rainy session, Hughes took advantage of Lucas di Grassi’s delayed attack mode activation, cycling up one position when both drivers had taken their attack modes.
While he simply couldn’t challenge for a second podium in 2025, Hughes drove a largely untroubled race, finishing fourth on the road, finishing over six seconds clear of fifth-placed Vergne, and three positions ahead of Vandoorne.
An important score for the Maserati man, who will be looking to end a tough maiden season with Maserati on a high, and carry momentum into the off-season.
Losers: Edoardo Mortara
One of 2025’s most consistent figures, Edoardo Mortara endured a tough weekend in Shanghai, with factors largely out of his control ruining any chances at securing points.
Having qualified 11th on the road, the Swiss racer found himself sandwiched in a spin between Cassidy and Vergne, incurring front wing damage as a result, and forced to pit for repairs.
Pushed down to last, Mortara began his recovery drive, even getting close to the points, before being forced to retire due to the damage from his opening lap nutcase, on lap 24.
Mortara too struggled in the rainy qualifying for Sunday’s round 11, limiting him to eighth of 11 runners in Group A, with the rain intensifying as the session drew to a close. Once both groups had set their laps, Mortara would start from the eighth row of the grid, alongside Sam Bird’s McLaren.
Starting lower down would mean Mortara struggled for overall pace, unable to make headway on the rest despite saving his attack mode until the end. He eventually finished 19th, almost 70 seconds behind race winner Cassidy, highlighting the field spread in the wet.
A tough last three races, coupled with the rise of Cupra Kiro’s Dan Ticktum, Vandoorne and Cassidy on the ladder, means the Mahindra man now sits outside the top ten in the standings, still on 47 points.
Comments