"I'm just happy that I'm okay" - Cause of Vandoorne's serious Formula E accident in Jakarta clarified

Debacle for Maserati MSG Racing in Jakarta: Towards the end of the race, both Stoffel Vandoorne and Jake Hughes retired with technical faults. While Hughes fortunately only rolled out in turn 1, Vandoorne suffered a heavy impact into the wall. Both drivers told e-Formula.news about similar problems with their Gen3 Evo cars, but were initially unable to identify the cause. According to fe_notebook, both are said to have had problems with the front powertrain, which ultimately led to brake failures.

Vandoorne's violent crash occurred after his team-mate Hughes had rolled out in the run-off zone of turn 1 a few minutes earlier. The chaos really erupted shortly after the Full Course Yellow period, which was called to recover the damaged Maserati. Belgian driver Vandoorne drove straight into the TecPro barrier and hit it hard.

Luckily, he was able to leave his car on his own, but immediately held his back. According to our colleagues, he is basically fine, but sore.

Both cars warned drivers early on in the race

Vandoorne described his problems to us as follows: "The car had an issue. I had a lot of alarms in the car early in the race. It seems like some parts were overheating. I don't know if it was the battery or something else. At some point I lost my brakes. I'm just happy that I'm okay. It's a shame to finish the race like that."

🟡 Full course yellow 🟡

Misery for the Maserati team, Vandoorne's race comes to an end shortly after teammate Hughes also retired.#JakartaEPrix pic.twitter.com/pVsLLVcSRa

- Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) June 21, 2025

Jake Hughes also expressed similar problems in an interview with e-Formula.news: "I don't quite know what the reason for our retirement was yet. We had a lot of problems with overheating early on in the race. I had a lot of alarms in the car trying to warn me. Ten to twelve laps later, the car just went out."

"We didn't really expect any problems with overheating. I think it could also have been caused by the dust on the track. I don't want to say that both cars had the same problem, but at least it looked similar. Fortunately, my problem appeared at the end of the last corner. Stoffel was not quite as happy as I was. We need to investigate that", adds Hughes.

Front-wheel drive probably led to brake failures

As colleagues at fe_notebook have since reported, both Maserati cars had a massive problem with their front powertrains, which ultimately led to them losing their brakes and failing during the race.

The team now has some time before the "double-header" in Berlin to get to the bottom of the problem. The next Formula E race weekend will take place on 12 and 13 July, once again on the familiar site of the old Tempelhof Airport.