Formula E

Facts & Figures: The best statistics on the Formula E season finale 2023 in London

Tobias Wirtz

Tobias Wirtz

Formula E held its final two races of the 2023 season in London last weekend. As usual, the E-Prix at the ExCeL exhibition centre in the British capital produced some interesting statistics, milestones and curiosities.

Statistical peculiarities at the London E-Prix

  • London hosted the 30th "double-header" in Formula E history last weekend, the fifth in the British capital. Sunday's race was also the 10th race of the electric series in London. Only in Berlin, Formula E has started more often (18). For the third time, London hosted the season finale, the last time this had been the case was in season 2.
  • In both races combined, there were four race interruptions due to red flags - this has never happened in Formula E before. Sunday's race was by far the longest race in Formula E history, with a total duration of 2:13:56 hours - including the interruptions.
  • Both Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy celebrated their fourth victory of the season in London. This means drivers from New Zealand have won eight of 16 races this season - half of all races. No nation has ever achieved that many victories in a single season. Previously, the record stood at six Swiss victories in Season 3 - all by Sebastien Buemi. In five of the last six races of the season, the respective pole-sitter also won the race. In the first ten rounds, this did not happen once.
  • Sebastien Buemi was the twelfth different driver on the podium this season. For the Swiss, it was the first trophy since the sixth race at the 2020 Berlin E-Prix, almost three years ago. This marked the end of Buemi's longest "trophy drought" in Formula E by far after 45 races or 1,082 days. Previously, he had failed to take part in the podium ceremony for a maximum of ten races in a row.
  • Jaguar and Andretti each scored eleven podium results in the 2023 season. They now share the record with Audi (season 4) and Mercedes (season 8). All eleven Andretti podiums were scored by Jake Dennis, setting a new record for a driver in a single season. With 229 points, the 2023 Formula E world champion also scored the highest number of points in history.
  • Porsche and Envision Racing have scored points at all 16 races this season. While this has happened more often in Formula E before, Porsche is only the second team not to finish the season in the top three in the teams' standings at the same time. This had previously only been the case with Venturi in season 2. The Monegasques were then even only sixth.
  • Pascal Wehrlein finished 15 races in the points this season, so he now shares the record with Stoffel Vandoorne, who had also achieved this in the previous season. Rene Rast, on the other hand, went ten races in a row without scoring points, longer than any other driver this season.
  • As in Sunday's race in Rome, Jaguar qualified with all four cars for the duel stage on Sunday. The "big cat" is the only manufacturer to have done so for the second time this season. Stellantis (DS and Maserati) already managed this in Saturday's race of the Jakarta E-Prix, Nissan did so it in Portland.

Qualifying comparison of Formula E teammates (season)

Team Driver 1 Score Driver 2
Neom McLaren
Hughes 9 : 7 Rast
Maserati MSG Racing Günther 8 : 8 Mortara
Jaguar TCS Racing
Evans 13 : 3 Bird
Envision Racing Buemi 7 : 9 Cassidy
Avalanche Andretti
Dennis 13 : 1 Lotterer
2 : 0 Beckmann
TAG Heuer Porsche Felix da Costa 3 : 13 Wehrlein
Mahindra Racing Rowland 5 : 3 di Grassi
Merhi 0 : 7
Nissan Nato 6 : 10 Fenestraz
Nio 333 Racing
Sette Camara 3 : 13 Ticktum
DS Penske Vandoorne 8 : 8 Vergne
ABT Cupra
Frijns 3 : 9 Müller
van der Linde 2 : 1

Since both Mahindra and ABT Cupra drivers did not participate in qualifying in Cape Town, no point was awarded here.

Average qualifying result (season)

The most consistent qualifying driver throughout the season was Mitch Evans: the Jaguar driver reached the duel stage twelve times, giving him an average grid position of 5.6. Behind him were Jake Dennis (6.3) and Sebastien Buemi (7.6). But Nick Cassidy (7.8), Max Günther (9.2), Sam Bird (9.5) and Pascal Wehrlein (9.6) also have a single-digit average. The worst regular driver in qualifying was Robin Frijns (16.6).

Average race result (season)

The most consistent driver in the race this season was Jake Dennis. He finished in an average position of 5.8, with Nick Cassidy behind him in an average position of 6.4. Pascal Wehrlein (6.5) and Mitch Evans (7.5) are behind. They are followed by Sebastien Buemi (9.0), Max Günther (9.5) and Jean-Eric Vergne (9.6). At the back is Robin Frijns (15.8), but still ahead of reserve drivers Roberto Merhi (17.7), David Beckmann (18.0) and Kelvin van der Linde (18.7).

Position changes (London E-Prix)

With a total of 13 positions gained, Lucas di Grassi was the one to move up the most in London: After 14 positions on Saturday (!), the Mahindra driver lost one position on Sunday, but was still clearly the winner of the weekend. This also earned him the title in the "ABB Driver of Progress" classification: in season 2023, the Brazilian has overtaken a total of 69 drivers.

Behind him are Jake Hughes and Roberto Merhi with eight position gains each, ahead of Edo Mortara (7). At the bottom of the statistics is Jean-Eric Vergne with 21 positions lost: After his retirement on Saturday, he had to come into the pits for a tyre change on Sunday and finished last because his team experimented with unusual tyre pressures. Nick Cassidy is also far at the back with 17 positions lost, all from his retirement on Saturday.

Race laps completed (season)

At the end of the season, no single driver has completed all 564 race laps. Nick Cassidy and Jean-Eric Vergne, who until then had a "clean slate", both retired on Saturday. Still, Cassidy completed the most laps with 549, just ahead of teammate Sebastien Buemi (545) and Jake Dennis (540).

Lead laps (season)

With a start-to-finish win on Sunday and another seven lead laps on Saturday, Nick Cassidy has secured the lead lap crown. Mitch Evans still overtook Jake Dennis thanks to 29 lead laps on Saturday, who had none added in London. Nineteen of the 25 drivers overall have led an E-Prix for at least one lap this season.

Summarized under "others" are: Antonio Felix da Costa, Stoffel Vandoorne (13 each), Lucas di Grassi (11), Sacha Fenestraz (10), Norman Nato (8), Jake Hughes, Rene Rast, Dan Ticktum (7 each), Robin Frijns, Nico Müller (3 each) and Edoardo Mortara (2)

Performance analysis (London E-Prix)

The winner of our performance analysis for the London E-Prix is Mitch Evans. In Sunday's semi-final duel, the Jaguar driver set the fastest time of the weekend (1:10.008 minutes). He is followed by Nick Cassidy, just 0.084 seconds behind, who is ahead of Sam Bird and Stoffel Vandoorne. 17 drivers were within just one second in London. Robin Frijns (1:11.348) and Roberto Merhi (1:11.724), who was more than 1.7 seconds off the fastest time, are at the back of the field.

The fastest team on one lap was thus Jaguar, just ahead of its customer team Envision. They were followed by DS Penske, Nissan and Andretti. The slowest team in the UK was again Mahindra. For the manufacturer ranking, this means: Jaguar >>> DS/Maserati >> Nissan >> Porsche >> Nio 333 >> Mahindra

Lap time analysis (London E-Prix)

Saturday

In the lap time analysis (we only show the laps before the first red flag due to distortion), it is noticeable that the race pace was not that much slower in the early stages - as it has been recently at other tracks: The drivers had to save less energy.

Sergio Sette Camara's turn is striking: the Nio 333 man drove much slower than his competitors after a collision in which he damaged his front wing and later even lost it. Afterwards, however, he was the fastest driver on track for stretches. The same applies to Lucas di Grassi and Edoardo Mortara.

You can also see the swings upwards for Rast, Vergne and Cassidy, who also damaged their cars. In Cassidy's case, it's also very easy to see that he activated Attack Mode twice very early in the race before passing Sebastien Buemi, which then led to the fateful collision between the two Envision drivers.

Sunday

A completely different picture emerged on Sunday: here you can see that the lap times were getting faster and faster. Since energy saving was not a factor in the race due to the rain, this was clearly due to the drying track, which allowed more than five seconds faster lap times toward the end of the race.

Strikingly, however, Jean-Eric Vergne, who had major traction problems due to incorrect tyre pressures and even made a pit stop in the race to change tyres, and Andre Lotterer, who lost many places after a contact.

It is also noticeable that, especially in the early stages, the drivers at the front, who had hardly any visual obstructions due to the spray, were significantly faster than the drivers further back in the field. In addition, the final sprint of Jake Dennis can be seen well, who tried to catch up with Mitch Evans in the last laps and set the fastest lap (which he was able to claim). Also good to see is that the Briton abandoned the plan in the last three laps, as he could not get close enough.

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