Facts & Figures: The best statistics on the 2026 Formula E race in Sanya

• Jake Dennis secured his eighth pole position in Formula E, drawing level with Nick Cassidy, Antonio Felix da Costa and Stoffel Vandoorne. It was his first pole since the 2025 Jakarta E-Prix, exactly 364 days earlier. For Andretti, it was their 15th pole position in Formula E. This puts the team in fourth place on the all-time leaderboard.
• Andretti thus secured both places on the front row for the very first time. It was the 14th time in Formula E history that a team had secured both places on the front row. Porsche last achieved this at the 2025 Mexico City E-Prix.
• It was the first time since the Jeddah E-Prix in February that Dennis had progressed to the duels stage of qualifying. In Berlin and Monaco, Dennis had most recently finished 13th in qualifying four times in a row.
• Felix da Costa finished in this position in Sanya. For the Portuguese driver, it was his worst qualifying result of the season. He had previously always finished in the top 10.
• In his quarter-final duel against Mitch Evans, Taylor Barnard was 0.001 seconds slower than his opponent. It was already the second time in a row that he had lost by the narrowest measurable margin: On Sunday in Monaco, he lost to Antonio Felix da Costa by the same margin. As if that weren’t enough, he was also 0.001 seconds slower than Felipe Drugovich in the quarter-final in Miami. These were the only occasions this season that duels were decided by 0.001 seconds.
• Lucas di Grassi, who sat out qualifying due to his grid penalty, finished last in his qualifying group for the seventh time in the eleventh race of the season.
• Dennis secured his eighth Formula E race victory in Sanya, drawing level with Oliver Rowland. It was his second win of the season following the season opener in Sao Paulo. For the Andretti team, it was their 13th Formula E victory.
• Marti secured his second Formula E podium in Sanya, having finished third in Monaco. This makes him the first driver since Cassidy and Dennis in the 2021 season to achieve two podium finishes in his very first Formula E season. At the same time, it is Marti’s best Formula E result to date. For Kiro (including predecessor teams), it was the team’s tenth podium finish in the all-electric racing series.
• Nyck de Vries stood on the podium for the 13th time in Formula E. For Mahindra, it was their 33rd top-three finish overall.
• With the twelve points for fourth place, Antonio Felix da Costa became only the fifth driver in history to break the 1,000-point mark in Formula E. At the same time, the Portuguese driver became the fourth driver to complete more than 5,000 race laps in the electric racing series.
• Jean-Eric Vergne repeated his best result of the season with eighth place. Following Mexico City, Jeddah and Berlin, this was already the fourth time this season that he had finished eighth.
• Lucas di Grassi, who had failed to score points in the first eight races of the season, now finished in the points for the third time in a row.
• For Evans, after eight consecutive top-10 finishes , it was the first time he had failed to score any points.
• Both Nissan drivers retired in Sanya. It was only the second time this season that both drivers from a single team failed to finish. The only other occasion this had happened was for Cupra Kiro at the season opener in Sao Paulo.
• Andretti secured its 1,500th Formula E point in Sanya. This saw the team overtake ABT (including Audi) in the all-time standings and it now occupies fourth place.
• Mahindra completed its 10,000th race lap in Sanya. It is the sixth team in history to have surpassed this milestone.

Average qualifying position (season)

Despite recording his worst qualifying result of the season, Felix da Costa has retained the top spot, though he is now only just ahead of Wehrlein and Mortara. At the back of the field, trailing by a considerable margin, is di Grassi, who once again finished last in the Sanya qualifying session.

Pole positions (season)

Average race result (season)

Evans remains at the top of this statistic after the eleventh race of the season. Müller has made significant ground and is now in second place. Ticktum, Maloney and Nato continue to be found only at the back of the field.

Race wins (season)

Podiums (Season)

Position changes (Sanya E-Prix)

Having gained a total of 16 positions, Marti was the driver who made the most ground. Following a poor qualifying session and a grid penalty resulting from an incident in Monaco, he fought his way up to the podium. Günther and di Grassi also made up double-digit positions.

At the bottom of the list are Cassidy, Ticktum (both -11) and Evans (-13), who, after good qualifying results, either retired from the race or, in Ticktum’s case, fell far behind.

Laps completed (season)

Following Rowland’s retirement, only five of the 20 drivers have managed to complete the full distance in every race so far. Envision and Porsche even managed this with both their cars.

Leading laps (season)

Müller remains in the lead in this statistic, even though he did not add any further laps in the lead in Sanya. However, Felix da Costa and Rowland have closed the gap significantly here. Dennis made the biggest leap, recording 18 laps in the lead in China – more than double the number he had achieved in the previous ten races of the season.

In total, all 20 drivers have at least one lap in the lead to their name this season.

The ‘others’ category includes: Noman Nato (19), Dan Ticktum (17), Nyck de Vries (12), Maximilian Günther (10), Taylor Barnard, Sebastien Buemi, Felipe Drugovich (7 each), Lucas di Grassi (6), Joel Eriksson, Pepe Marti (4 each), Zane Maloney and Jean-Eric Vergne (2 each).

Performance analysis of drivers & teams (Sanya E-Prix)

Wehrlein was the fastest driver in Monaco: the Porsche driver set the fastest lap of the weekend (1:26.217 minutes) in the second free practice session on Saturday morning. He was followed by Mortara, Dennis, de Vries, Ticktum and Drugovich. Nineteen of the twenty drivers set their fastest times in this session, which was by far the coolest of the entire weekend. In later sessions, track temperatures rose in some cases to over 60 °C. At the back of the field were Vergne, Maloney and di Grassi, although the latter did not even attempt a lap at 350 kW due to his grid penalty.

The fastest team over a single lap was therefore Porsche, ahead of Mahindra. They were followed by Andretti, DS Penske and Jaguar. The slowest team in Sanya was once again Lola Yamaha ABT. In terms of the manufacturers’ ranking, this means (adjusted): Porsche >>> Mahindra >>> Stellantis >>> Jaguar >>> Nissan >>> Lola Yamaha

Lap time analysis (Sanya E-Prix)

In our lap time analysis this time, due to the full-course yellow phases and the race interruption, we can only examine individual sections of the race.

First half of the race

The lap time analysis shows that the pace was very slow in the early stages, but picked up significantly from lap 12 onwards. Nick Cassidy and the two Mahindra drivers were among those who really pushed the pace, driving six to seven seconds faster per lap than in the early stages.

Di Grassi, who was trailing far behind the field after his stop-and-go penalty on lap 1, opted instead for an extreme energy-saving strategy, which ultimately paid off.

Second half of the race

Looking at the second half of the race between the two full-course-yellow phases – caused by the retirements of the Nissan drivers – it becomes clear just how differently the drivers had chosen their strategies beforehand. Whilst Müller had already used up both his Attack Modes during this phase, his team-mate Wehrlein still had six minutes of extra power remaining.

Dennis, de Vries and Marti were particularly quick during this race-deciding phase – the drivers who ultimately finished on the podium. But Max Günther, on his way to sixth place, was also at times the fastest driver on the grid.