Formula E in Berlin: Mitch Evans wins ahead of Oliver Rowland after a clever strategy call

Mitch Evans fought his way from 17th to victory in the Formula E race in the German capital on Sunday. The decisive factor for the kiwi was his choice of clever strategy with good timing of the attack mode activations. Reigning world champion Oliver Rowland finished the race in second place, pole-sitter Pascal Wehrlein in third.

The action continued in Berlin on Sunday afternoon with the second race. With a very warm outside temperature of 29 degrees, the race started at 4:05 pm (CEST). The race was scheduled for 37 laps, though unlike the previous day’s race, there was no pit boost. Mitch Evans, Norman Nato and Oliver Rowland had opted not to set fast lap times in qualifying in order to conserve their tyres for the race.

Almost all the drivers got off to a good start, but reigning world champion Oliver Rowland reported a problem at the start over the radio. Wehrlein, who started the race from pole position, dropped back into the front midfield at the start of the race.

This was followed by contact between the Citroen of Nick Cassidy and Nyck de Vries in the Mahindra: after slight contact with team-mate Edoardo Mortara, de Vries slid into Cassidy in turn 6, who almost spun! The contact ended the Dutchman's race prematurely.

A tight battle for space as three cars enter the corner, forcing Nyck de Vries to retire in Round 8 🫣@Hankook_Sport #BerlinEPrix #FormulaE pic.twitter.com/mFgt96wAOT

— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) May 3, 2026

This was followed by another contact with Buemi for Cassidy: The New Zealander hit Buemi's Envision with his right front wheel and damaged his front wing in the process. He drove into the pits and dropped to the back of the field.

Contact with Sébastien Buemi forces Nick Cassidy into the pits 🫨@Hankook_Sport #BerlinEPrix #FormulaE pic.twitter.com/KxF3B5xgD3

— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) May 3, 2026

On lap 12, Wehrlein in the Porsche drew attention to himself when the season 10 world champion fought his way in between the two Envision cars of Sebastien Buemi and Joel Eriksson, who were leading the field at the time.

Attack mode is activated

On lap 14, Zane Maloney in the Lola Yamaha ABT was the first driver to decide to activate attack mode for the first time. A shortly after, the rest of the field followed suit. With the extra power, the field got shuffled.

Evans, on the other hand, had waited to activate his attack mode and opted for six minutes on his first activation. This turned out to be the right decision: Evans still had two minutes of Attack Mode left at the end and was able to overtake Wehrlein towards the end of the race, who was leading the field at the time but had less Attack Mode left.

Mitch Evans moves into P1 ahead of Pascal Wehrlein, while Oliver Rowland makes an unexpected overtake for P2 under yellow flag 👀@Hankook_Sport #BerlinEPrix #FormulaE pic.twitter.com/2Xg8ntI297

— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) May 3, 2026

Full-course yellow sets up final sprint

A yellow flag was shown on the start-finish straight due to a front wing part on the track after contact between Antonio Felix da Costa and Nico Müller, followed by a short full-course yellow period to remove said part. The race was continued after a short time and Evans drove confidently towards his victory in Berlin. Joining him on the podium were Nissan's Oliver Rowland and Porsche's Pascal Wehrlein.

Buemi, Nato, Dennis, Mortara, Vergne, Drugovich and Eriksson finished behind them. The second Porsche of Müller, race winner from yesterday, finished the race in 13th position and DS Penske's Maximilian Günther in 15th place.

The next Formula E race is in a fortnight' time in Monaco. That one, too, will be a "double-header".