Facts & Figures: The best statistics on the 2024 Formula E races in Saudi Arabia

Formula E held rounds two and three of the 2024 world championship season in Diriyah last weekend. The first "double-header" of the season produced some interesting statistics, milestones and curiosities.

Statistical peculiarities at the Diriyah E-Prix

• There have now been eleven Formula E races in Diriyah - only in Berlin (18) has the electric series hosted more races to date.
• Jean-Eric Vergne achieved the 16th pole position of his Formula E career on Saturday. He now shares the record for the most pole positions with Sebastien Buemi, who last took first place on the grid 364 days earlier, also in the first race of the Diriyah E-Prix. The last pole position by Vergne was achieved in Jakarta in 2022. With 601 days, it was the longest pole drought for the Frenchman in Formula E (previously: 560 days between the Berlin E-Prix 2016 and the Hong Kong E-Prix 2017).
• A series came to an end for Envision Racing on Friday: for the first time since the Portland E-Prix in June 2023, none of the team's drivers reached the duel phase of qualifying.
• Race winner Jake Dennis won the race 13.289 seconds ahead of Vergne - the second-largest margin of a race winner in Formula E history. Only in Putrajaya in 2015, Lucas di Grassi had a slightly bigger gap to Sam Bird in 2nd place: 13.884 seconds.
• Jean-Eric Vergne scored his 34th podium in Formula E - only di Grassi (40) has more. Vergne stood on the podium for the first time since the Berlin E-Prix last year.
• Oliver Rowland secured his 6th pole position in Formula E on Saturday. The last time the Briton was first on the grid was in Seoul in 2022.
• Thanks to Nick Cassidy's two podiums in Saudi Arabia, Jaguar has now taken part in the podium ceremony for the seventh time in a row.
• The two race winners from Diriyah, Jake Dennis and Nick Cassidy, both celebrated their 50th Formula E race on Saturday. It was the sixth race win in the series for both drivers. They thus drew level with Edoardo Mortara.
• McLaren driver Jake Hughes achieved fourth place on Saturday - the best result of his Formula E career.
• ABT driver Lucas di Grassi on Saturday became the first driver in Formula E history to have completed more than 10,000 kilometres of racing in Formula E.
• Envision Racing celebrated the 50th podium in the team's history with Robin Frijns' 2nd place on Saturday. They were the first team to reach this milestone. For Frijns, it was his first podium since the 2022 New York City E-Prix.
• Nissan scored 26 points on Saturday - the best result for the team in 1,263 days (the fifth race of the 2020 Berlin E-Prix). Thanks to these points, Nissan (including its predecessor teams Renault e.dams and Nissan e.dams) became the second team to break the 1,500 points mark in the electric series.

Average qualifying position (season)

This statistic is led by Nick Cassidy, who was the only driver to make it into the duel phase every time this season. The poor performance of Antonio Felix da Costa, who qualified an average of 12.6 places lower than his team-mate Pascal Wehrlein in the first three races, is particularly striking. While Wehrlein is the second-best driver in this statistic, the Portuguese is only in 19th place.

Average race position (season)

Nick Cassidy is also clearly in the lead in this statistic: the Jaguar works driver has finished on the podium in all three races so far. Behind him, Pascal Wehrlein and Jean-Eric Vergne are on a par.

Position changes (Diriyah E-Prix)

With a total of eleven positions gained, Antonio Felix da Costa and Edoardo Mortara were the ones who advanced the most in Diriyah. Both improved by four positions each on Friday and seven positions each on Saturday. Behind them in this statistic are Nyck de Vries with seven and Nick Cassidy with six positions gained. At the bottom of the list are Jehan Daruvala (-13) and Sergio Sette Camara (-14).

Race laps completed (season)

A total of 13 drivers have completed all 110 race laps so far this season.

Lead laps (season)

In each of the first three races of the season, which lasted 36 or 37 laps, the winner led the race for between 30 and 33 laps. Interestingly, not a single one of the seven drivers has managed to clock up leading kilometres in two different races.

Summarised under "others" are: Robin Frijns (4), Jean-Eric Vergne (3) and Mitch Evans (1).

Performance analysis of the drivers & teams (Diriyah E-Prix)

The winner of our performance analysis of the Diriyah E-Prix is Oliver Rowland. In the final duel on Saturday, the Nissan driver set the fastest time of the weekend (1:10.055 minutes). He was followed by Mitch Evans, just 0.099 seconds behind, and Nick Cassidy. 19 drivers were within one second in Saudi Arabia. The two ABT Cupra cars of Nico Müller (1:11.264) and Lucas di Grassi (1:11.311) were at the back of the field.

Strikingly, six drivers set their best lap times of the weekend in Saturday's race. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that hardly any energy had to be saved due to the shortness of the race. On the other hand, it shows that the track was so dirty throughout the entire race weekend that even on Saturday evening it was still getting faster the more laps the cars completed.

The fastest team on one lap was Nissan, just ahead of Jaguar. They were followed by Andretti, Envision and DS Penske. The slowest team was ABT. For the manufacturer ranking, this means: Nissan >>> Jaguar >>> Porsche >>> DS/Maserati >>> ERT >>> Mahindra

Gap to the leader (Friday)

This analysis of the gaps clearly shows that Sam Bird held off Nick Cassidy for a long time. As soon as the Jaguar driver had passed him, he caught up significantly and overtook Mitch Evans thanks to a team order. The latter kept the gap to Bird large enough for Cassidy to stay ahead of the McLaren driver when the attack mode was activated.

You can also see that the pace of race winner Jake Dennis' pursuers dropped dramatically in the final laps: The drivers had to conserve energy and became embroiled in position battles that cost them a lot of time.

Gap to the leader (Saturday)

It was a completely different picture on Saturday: Nick Cassidy and Robin Frijns "escaped" from the field in the first half of the race, but then had to save energy, so that the field moved closer together again. There were no more position changes in the top five after lap 11.

Lap time analysis (Friday)

In the lap time analysis for the Friday race, it is noticeable how much Dennis was able to pick up the pace towards the end of the race to achieve the fastest lap and thus a bonus point, while his pursuers were significantly slower at the same time. You can also see very clearly how much faster the track became over the course of the race.

Also clearly recognisable is Dan Ticktum's breakaway to the top: as in Mexico, the ERT driver speculated on a safety car, which never materialised. His energy advantage was therefore of no use to him in view of the huge gap he had built up.

Also easy to recognise are the two driving errors that Mitch Evans made on laps 15 and 36, when he slid into the run-off zone while attacking a competitor and lost a lot of time.

Lap time analysis (Saturday)

On Saturday, the data shows a similar tactic for ERT driver Ticktum. However, it is also very clear to see that Cassidy and Frijns pushed the pace to the extreme and consumed significantly more energy than the energy target specified. It is also noticeable that both had to slow down significantly from lap 13 onwards and were among the slowest drivers in the entire field.

Oliver Rowland, on the other hand, who was in third place, stuck to his energy targets and drove very consistent lap times. Norman Nato, Nyck de Vries and especially Lucas di Grassi gambled too high and had to slow down a lot in the last two laps to even make it to the finish line.