Team-by-team mid-season analysis in Formula E 2024: Jaguar vs Porsche

The Monaco E-Prix marked the halfway point in the 2024 Formula E season. After eight of 16 races completed, Pascal Wehrlein leads the drivers' standings in the electric championship, while Jaguar significantly extended its lead in the team standings with a one-two victory in the Principality. Read our team-by-team mid-season analysis to find out how the eleven Formula E racing teams are positioned after the first half of the year.

Since the season opener in Mexico City, Formula E has completed a total of 264 race laps, even though only five drivers have completed all the laps of the year. Mitch Evans (9) has won the most sessions. Wehrlein (11) drove the most qualifying duels and also achieved the best average position in qualifying (4.0) and the race (5.9).

Apart from the facts and statistics, there were some other interesting stories on and off the Formula E track in the first half of the year. We shed light on these in our traditional half-time analysis.

Formula E pecking order at the halfway point of the 2024 season

1st place | Jaguar TCS Racing | 172 points

In the tenth Formula E season, the time finally seems ripe for Jaguar's first title. Thanks to its New Zealand driver duo, the British team is the only one to have both drivers on the top step of the podium at the halfway point of the season.

The season had not started particularly well for Evans: In the first seven races of the season, he only finished on the podium in Sao Paulo, while team-mate Cassidy was allowed to take part in the podium ceremony three times in the first three races and even led the championship standings in the meantime. Jaguar has even led the team standings since Diriyah.

With a commanding one-two victory thanks to outstanding team tactics in Monaco, Jaguar was even able to significantly extend its lead and is therefore the clear title favourite in the second half of the season, especially as Berlin seems to suit the team: Jaguar scored a one-two there in 2023.

2nd place | TAG Heuer Porsche | 128 points

The Porsche works team is Jaguar's closest rival. They are 44 points off the lead after eight of 16 races.

Although the team has only been able to celebrate two podiums so far - Pascal Wehrlein won the race on both occasions - it has shown great improvement in qualifying in particular: still the weak point of the team from Weissach in 2023, Wehrlein is hard to beat on a fast lap this season. The German has already secured pole position three times and started from the top 8 a further four times.

Antonio Felix da Costa, on the other hand, is probably the most unlucky driver in Formula E at the moment: in Misano, he crossed the finish line in first place but was disqualified due to an incorrect spring in his car. In Tokyo, he was pushed aside in the battle for second place and lost what he thought was a safe podium finish, In Monaco, he was caught up in Sebastien Buemi's accident and dropped to the back of the field.

If the team can maintain its performance - especially in qualifying - in the second half of the season, both drivers can have a major say in the battle for race wins and, of course, the title.

3rd place | Andretti | 113 points

Andretti is in third place at the halfway point of the season. Strikingly, only three times in the first eight races did one of the team's drivers make it into the duel phase of qualifying.

In one respect, however, the team is at the top: Jake Dennis and Norman Nato have already made up 68 positions in the race this season and are in first and fourth place in the ABB Driver of Progress rankings. While Dennis is able to fight at the front in the race in particular and has already finished on the podium four times, his new team-mate Norman Nato has found it much more difficult so far. Sixth place is his best race result, which he achieved in both Diriyah and Tokyo.

If the team can improve its performance in qualifying, Jaguar and Porsche will have to warm up at the front

4th place | Nissan | 112 points

Nissan is certainly the surprise of the 2024 season: the team has made a huge leap forward. With 112 points at the halfway point of the season, it has already collected more points than in the previous season. Andretti is only a single point behind.

Oliver Rowland in particular achieved good results: The Briton has finished on the podium four times in a row this season, and in Misano he even inherited the race win after Antonio Felix da Costa was disqualified. After scoring no points in the first two races of the season, the team then scored double-digit points six times in a row. Not even Jaguar managed that.

If Fenestraz utilises his potential better in the second half of the season, Nissan can still expect a lot this season: The gap to the front is not uncatchable.

5th place | DS Penske | 102 points

Rarely very noticeable, but consistently at the front of the field: this is how DS Penske's season so far can be described. In the first eight races, the two gold and black cars finished in the top 10 a total of twelve times.

In Monaco, Stoffel Vandoorne could have finally hit the jackpot: The Belgian finished on the podium for the first time since winning the championship title in 2022, moving up to ninth place in the overall standings. For Jean-Eric Vergne, on the other hand, the highlight of the season was Friday's race in Diriyah, when he took second place from pole position.

If both drivers continue to score points as consistently as they have so far, there is still a lot in it for DS Penske this year with a deficit of just eleven points on third place.

6th place | Maserati MSG Racing | 67 points

Maserati is (almost) a one-man team so far this season: Max Günther is in sixth place in the drivers' standings with 65 points. The 37-point gap to Pascal Wehrlein is not uncatchable, so the race winner from Tokyo certainly has more than one eye on the top five in the championship. In contrast, Formula E newcomer Jehan Daruvala has only scored a meagre two championship points so far.

In the first eight races of the year, Günther proved for the first time in his Formula E career that he has the consistency needed to have a say in the championship. He finished in the points seven times, only missing out in Misano in twelfth place after receiving a five-second time penalty. One of the beneficiaries was his team-mate, making Maserati the only team apart from Jaguar to score points in every race.

In the team standings, Maserati is already a long way off the top 5 at the halfway point of the season. 35 points behind DS Penske is certainly not so easy to make up with just one driver. Daruvala will therefore have to improve significantly to be able to attack at the top in the second half of the season.

7th place | Neom McLaren | 63 points

Neom McLaren has had anything but an outstanding first half of the season, even if Sam Bird's victory in Sao Paulo may belie that somewhat. If you look at the figures, you can see that Oliver Rowland scored 25 points more in the first eight races of the season with the identical car than both McLaren drivers combined.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that Sam Bird will be out for longer after his accident in free practice in Monaco. For Berlin, this has already been officially confirmed, but it is doubtful that he will be fit to drive again just two weeks later in Shanghai. Even though Taylor Barnard celebrated a solid Formula E debut in the Principality, championship points cannot be expected from the young Briton in the German capital either. That leaves Jake Hughes, who is also having a mixed season. With pole position in Misano and fourth place in Diriyah, his season highlights so far have been very manageable.

Although there have been isolated highlights, McLaren is a midfield team in Formula E in 2024 and is likely to remain so at least until the return of Sam Bird.

8th place | Envision Racing | 41 points

Envision Racing can be described as the biggest loser after the first half of the 2024 season: The reigning champions in the team standings are enduring a grotty season. In comparison, the Jaguar works team scored more than four times as many points with the identical powertrain.

The departure of Nick Cassidy is particularly noticeable. Neither Sebastien Buemi nor returnee Robin Frijns have been able to show the necessary consistency so far, even though both have already finished on the podium once. In the other seven races combined, however, Buemi scored just two points and Frijns only three. This means that a potential title defence is now a distant prospect.

In view of this starting position, one dreads the Berlin E-Prix, where the team will have to replace both regular drivers due to the clash of dates with the WEC race at Spa-Francorchamps. Envision Racing will find it very difficult to bring the season to a positive conclusion this year.

9th place | ERT | 23 points

Some things in Formula E are simply inexplicable: in 2023, Dan Ticktum repeatedly showed that the performance of ERT - or Nio 333, as the team was then known - was not that bad on one lap. In 2024, however, the Briton was the worst driver in qualifying of all 22 regular drivers in the series with an average starting position of 18.3. His team-mate starts six places further forward on average.

Combined with the poorer efficiency of the ERT drive, this means that the drivers have to try out alternative tactics more often in the race in order to get to the front. Often this doesn't work at all, but sometimes the team gets lucky: In Misano, Ticktum scored a sensational fourth place, while he didn't even finish in the top 15 in the first five races of the season.

However, ERT must look to the rear and hope that ABT Cupra and Mahindra will not be able to utilise the car's higher potential in the second half of the season. This is the only way ERT can stay ahead of these two teams until the end of the season.

10th place | ABT Cupra | 18 points

Compared to last year, ABT Cupra 2024 is much improved and has clearly got the Mahindra works team under control so far. Nico Müller in particular had a really good first half of the season and it is not without reason that he has been linked with a switch to Porsche: The Swiss driver made it into the duel phase of qualifying four times in a row, something that only Pascal Wehrlein has managed apart from him.

The ABT drivers continue to struggle in the race, as the efficiency of the drive developed by ZF simply cannot match that of the top drives. Even Lucas di Grassi, one of the most experienced and successful drivers in the electric series, cannot overcome this. The hope remains that things will get better next year with Lola Yamaha power.

After a weak first half of the season, however, ERT is definitely still within reach for ABT Cupra. But more than 9th place is almost impossible for the German team.

11th place | Mahindra | 0 points

After eight of 16 races this season, Mahindra is in last place in the team standings. A works team that has two multiple race winners in its cockpits, one of whom has already been world champion, cannot and should not be satisfied with this.

The lack of competitiveness is already evident in qualifying: Edoardo Mortara only made it into the duel phase twice, Nyck de Vries started from 12th place in Tokyo - his best grid position in 2023! The weaknesses are ruthlessly exposed, particularly in comparison with the team's own customer team: Nico Müller, for example, always manages to get the most out of the Mahindra drive on one lap.

But even in the race, de Vries and Mortara were unable to make any significant progress. The Mahindra team is only a shadow of its former self in 2024. Strictly speaking, it was last year, but Lucas di Grassi managed to push the limits of the car on particularly good days. We have not yet seen this from either driver this year. There is currently little to suggest that Mahindra will relinquish the "red lantern" in the team standings in 2024.

However, nothing has been definitively decided yet: Formula E will still award up to 240 points over the course of the year. In purely mathematical terms, the championship battle is still wide open. As usual, we will be following the rest of the season for you with live streams and session reports - including the double header in Berlin on 11 May and 12 May.