Facts & Figures: The best statistics on the 2025 Formula E races in Jeddah

Formula E held its third and fourth races of the 2024/25 season in Jeddah last weekend. The first double-header in 2025 produced some interesting statistics, milestones and curiosities.

Statistical peculiarities of the Jeddah E-Prix

• Saturday's race was the 13th Formula E race in Saudi Arabia. Only in Germany (18) and the USA (16) have more races been held. Nico Müller started his 50th Formula E race.
• On Friday, Maximilian took his 3rd pole position in Formula E, his first outside Jakarta. It was also the first German starting row 1 in Formula E history.
• Taylor Barnard achieved his first pole position on Saturday, becoming the youngest pole-setter of all time and replacing Daniel Abt. The German had taken pole position at Long Beach in 2015. For McLaren, it was also the fifth pole position in Formula E.
• On Saturday, Pascal Wehrlein was not in the duels for the first time since the 2024 Portland E-Prix; 13th place was actually his worst grid position since Shanghai 2024. Oliver Rowland, on the other hand, has always been in the top four in qualifying this season, but has never been on pole: he has been second twice and third and fourth once each.
• On Saturday, three Brits started from the first three positions. The last time this was the case was in Valencia 2021, when four Brits - Jake Dennis, Alex Lynn, Tom Blomqvist and Oliver Turvey - started at the front. In the race, three Brits finished on the podium. Never before have three drivers from the same nation finished in the top three places.
• Maximilian Günther scored his sixth Formula E victory on Friday. He won for DS Penske for the first time, meaning he has now won for three different teams (Andretti, Maserati and Penske). Apart from him, only Antonio Felix da Costa and Sam Bird have achieved this. It was the first Penske victory since Hyderabad 2023, almost to the day two years earlier when Jean-Eric Vergne won. With 29 points, Günther became the first driver to score the maximum number of points in this race for the first time since Jake Dennis in Rome 2023. It was the first victory from pole position since 18 races, when Pascal Wehrlein won at the 2023 season opener in Mexico City.
• On Friday, the Porsche series ended with nine podiums in a row, which was a new Formula E record. Jaguar went two races in a row without points for the first time since Season 9. In 2023, the team had not scored any points in Hyderabad and Cape Town.
• Oliver Rowland celebrated his fifth Formula E victory and his 16th podium on Saturday, equalling Robin Frijns and Stoffel Vandoorne. It was his third consecutive podium and fourth in the last five races. It was also the 21st win for Nissan (including predecessor team e.dams), as well as their 50th podium. Only Envision and Virgin have won more trophies in Formula E with 53 podiums. Thanks to these points, Nissan is now back in first place in the all time best list, having overtaken Envision/Virgin.
• Jake Hughes celebrated his second Formula E podium after Shanghai 2024, back then still for McLaren. Taylor Barnard scored his second and third podiums in Formula E in Jeddah, becoming the first driver since Season 1 to finish on the podium three times in his first seven races and the first McLaren driver to score more than one podium (Rene Rast, Sam Bird and Hughes have all scored one podium each).
• On Saturday, nine different teams were in the points, the last time this was the case in Sunday's race at Misano 2024. Only Lola and Envision failed to score any points.

Average qualifying position (season)

The best qualifier this season is Oliver Rowland, who has started from the top 4 in all four races so far. Alongside him, Max Günther is the only driver to have reached the duel phase in all races this season. Particularly noteworthy: In 6th place with an average of 10.3 is Taylor Barnard, who was the worst qualifier of the entire season before Jeddah with an average of 18.0.

Average race result (season)

Oliver Rowland is also the driver with the best average position in the race. Antonio Felix da Costa, the championship leader before the weekend, lost a lot of ground due to his retirement in Saturday's race.

Position changes (Jeddah E-Prix)

With a total of 20 positions gained, Stoffel Vandoorne was the driver who advanced the most in Jeddah. After gaining four positions on Friday, he worked his way up from 22nd on the grid to 6th on Saturday. Jake Dennis (+11), Nick Cassidy and Edo Mortara (+10 each) also made double-digit improvements.

At the bottom of the list with 19 positions lost is Mitch Evans, who was lapped after his accident on Friday and retired on Saturday. Max Günther (-16) and Antonio Felix da Costa (-13) also lost many positions due to their collision on Saturday.

Race laps completed (season)

After the Jeddah E-Prix, eleven drivers have completed all 133 race laps. Felix da Costa and Günther are no longer among them after their retirements on Saturday.

Leading laps (season)

Oliver Rowland collected the most lead laps this season, leading the race in all four races this season. With Günther, Barnard, Frijns, Beckmann and Vergne, five drivers collected leading kilometres for the first time this season.

Under "Others" are summarised: Nick Cassidy, Jake Dennis (6 each), Robin Frijns (3), David Beckmann, Jean-Eric Vergne (1 each).

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

The fastest man at the Jeddah E-Prix was Taylor Barnard. In the final on Saturday, the McLaren driver set the fastest time of the weekend (1:14.804 minutes). He was followed by Max Günther, one tenth of a second behind, ahead of Pascal Wehrlein. Only these three drivers stayed under a lap time of 1:15 minutes. 15 drivers were within one second of each other in Jeddah. At the back of the field were Nick Cassidy (1:16.045), Lucas di Grassi (1:16.189), Zane Maloney (1:16.247) and Jake Dennis (1:16.262), who was almost 1.5 seconds off the best time.

The fastest team on one lap was McLaren ahead of DS Penske and Porsche. They were followed by Nissan, Jaguar and Maserati. The slowest team in Jeddah was Lola Yamaha ABT. Adjusted for the manufacturer ranking, this means Nissan >>> DS/Maserati >>> Porsche >>> Jaguar >>> Mahindra >>> Lola Yamaha

Lap time analysis (Jeddah E-Prix)

The lap time analysis is very difficult to compare this time, as the Pit Boost pit stops resulted in significant upward outliers and there was also a short safety car phase in the race on Friday. What is clear, however, is that the race without Pit Boost on Saturday was significantly slower than Friday's race.

Max Günther, the race leader on Friday, needed 8:08 minutes for the first six laps. Taylor Barnard, who led the field a day later, needed 8:42 minutes for the same distance - the McLaren driver was on average more than five seconds slower per lap than Günther the day before.

Friday

Due to the distortion, we are only showing the laps after the safety car. It is noticeable that there were major differences in the laps where the Pit Boost pit stop was carried out. Max Günther, for example, lost quite a bit of time to Oliver Rowland here.

In the final laps, you can see that Rowland had to save energy and thus lost the victory to Günther in the final metres. It is striking that Lucas di Grassi was the fastest driver in the field for long stretches after the pit stop: the Brazilian had saved a lot of energy after his early drive-through penalty in the hope of a (longer) safety car period and had fallen so far back. When this tactic didn't pay off, he used his energy advantage to increase his race pace. The same applied to Pascal Wehrlein, who used a similar tactic after his puncture on lap 1.

Saturday

In Saturday's race, the drivers were a long way off the 1:17 lap times that were set in the closing stages on Friday. On the first laps in particular, the drivers were a full nine seconds slower per lap!

The effects of the Attack Mode are much more noticeable in the energy-saving race than in the race with Pit Boost. You can clearly see that the two Andretti drivers used their second and final Attack Mode much earlier than the other drivers.

It is also noticeable that many drivers had significantly greater problems using the available energy towards the end of the race: For example, even Taylor Barnard, who ended up in second place, saw his lap time drop by more than 2.5 seconds - which in the end was also the reason why Rowland won the race by almost six seconds.