Formula E qualifying in Jeddah: Mortara secures back-to-back pole positions

In the second Jeddah race of the 12th Formula E season, the fastest driver of the previous day once again secured pole position. Dennis and Felix da Costa will line up behind him. In the end, German driver Günther only managed 6th place on the grid, while the two Porsches of Wehrlein and Müller will start from 11th and 16th place respectively.

Group A: Mortara fastest, Rowland surprised with strong improvement at the end

An incredibly strong group lined up in qualifying for group A: The winner of yesterday's Jeddah E-Prix, Pascal Wehrlein, drove in this group to progress to the next phase of qualifying. The two drivers with whom he had shared the podium the previous day, Edoardo Mortara and Mitch Evans, were also in the first group of qualifying. They were joined by the podium finishers from last year's 1st Jeddah E-Prix, reigning world champion Oliver Rowland, Taylor Barnard and Maximilian Günther. The group was completed by Jean-Eric Vergne, Norman Nato, Joel Eriksson and Dan Ticktum.

With an outside temperature of 29 degrees Celsius and a hot 51 degrees Celsius track temperature, the drivers started on time.

The drivers needed around three laps to get their tyres up to temperature, Günther was told by his team at the start of the session. After five minutes, the drivers' times were roughly at the same level as in the group phases of the previous day, with Dan Ticktum leading the field with a lap time of 1:17.335 minutes, followed very closely by Vergne and Wehrlein a little further behind. Polesitter from the previous day then went one better with two minutes to go and secured the top position in the group with a time of 1:17.253 minutes.

Rowland seems to have had problems at the start: for a long time he was a long way behind with a lap time of 1:25.139 minutes, 7 seconds behind the rest of the field, but in the end he still managed to secure third place.

This put Mortara, Günther, Rowland and Vergne through to the quarter-finals. For Ticktum, Wehrlein, Evans, Nato, Barnard and Eriksson, qualifying was already over at this point.

Group B: Felix da Costa fastest in Group B

Group B consisted of Nick Cassidy, Nico Müller, Jake Dennis, Sebastien Buemi, Antonio Felix da Costa, Nyck de Vries, Pepe Marti, Zane Maloney, Felipe Drugovich and Lucas di Grassi.

At the beginning of the group, Buemi was informed over the radio that many drivers in Group A were able to improve their times significantly towards the end of the group phase. This evaluation also proved to be correct in Group B.

The first faster time was set by Müller, who positioned his Porsche at the front of the field with a time of 1:17.620 minutes, closely followed by Drugovich and Dennis. Other drivers followed suit with 2 minutes left on the clock, allowing Maloney to work his way up to third place and the two Jaguar-powered cars from Buemi and Felix da Costa to take first and second place. Just before the end, Cassidy and Buemi improved their times and prevented Maloney from advancing to the duel phase.

Felix da Costa, Dennis, Buemi and Cassidy were fastest in the next phase of qualifying, allowing them to progress. Maloney, Drugovich, Marti, Müller, de Vries and di Grassi were prevented from continuing.

Quarter-finals

QF1: Oliver Rowland vs Maximilian Günther

Rowland took a more aggressive approach to his preparation lap than his rival and this seemed to work well for him. The Brit was ahead from the start of the lap and was even able to extend his lead. Günther ultimately lost out to the Nissan driver by 0.250 seconds.

QF2: Jean-Eric Vergne vs. Edorardo Mortara

The polesitter from the previous day, Mortara, was able to confidently prevail in the duel against Vergne's Citroen: The Swiss driver completed the quarter-final lap almost half a second faster than the champion of the 4th and 5th Formula E seasons, securing his progress.

QF3: Sebastien Buemi vs Jake Dennis

Buemi and Dennis fought an extremely close race right to the end, where the Swiss driver suddenly lost a lot of time. A gap of 0.098 seconds suddenly became a gap of 0.343 seconds. Dennis thus secured his place in the semi-finals.

QF4: Nick Cassidy vs Antonio Felix da Costa

For a long time, the battle between Felix da Costa's Jaguar and Cassidy's Citroen looked set to continue with the New Zealander Cassidy just 0.030 seconds ahead of Felix da Costa. However, a mistake at the end of the lap prevented him from progressing to the semi-finals. Cassidy lost to the Portuguese driver by almost half a second.

Semi-final

SF1: Oliver Rowland vs Edoardo Mortara

In the battle between Mortara and Rowland, Rowland had carved out a lead in the first sector, but this was cancelled out in the other sectors by Mortara, who ultimately snatched the British driver's ticket to the final by a margin of 0.344 seconds.

SF2: Antonio Felix da Costa vs Jake Dennis

The duel between Felix da Costa and the world champion of the 9th Formula E season was initially on an equal footing. But as the lap progressed, Dennis was able to extend his lead and won by 0.331 seconds. Even though Dennis himself described the lap he drove as a "shitlap", it was still enough to advance to the final.

Final: Jake Dennis vs. Edoardo Mortara

Mahindra driver Mortara and Andretti driver Dennis could hardly have put up a better fight: The driver who had already started from the top position yesterday was able to prevail in dominant fashion, even though Dennis was extremely close on his heels and Dennis Mortara lost out by just 0.037 seconds in the end. By winning the final duel, he secured his second pole position of the Jeddah weekend. Even though Mortara told his team that he thought he would end up in the wall with the car in turns 11 and 16, that's how close to the limit he drove around the track.

BACK-TO-BACK POLES 👊@edomortara clinches @JuliusBaer Pole Position for Round 5#JeddahEPrix pic.twitter.com/Jio23cWmAZ

— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) February 14, 2026

The second Jeddah race of the weekend will take place at 18:05 (CET). E-Formula.news will be following the race as usual in the Formel E live ticker - ideal as a "second screen" for real fans!