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Nyck De Vries Wins Chaotic Formula E Tokyo E-Prix For Mahindra
Nyck de Vries claimed victory in the second Tokyo E-Prix on 26 July 2026, securing Mahindra Racing's second win of the 2025/26 FIA Formula E World Championship season after a chaotic wet-to-dry race that finished under red flag conditions.
The result reshuffled the title fight too. Jake Dennis inherited the championship lead after rivals Mitch Evans and Pascal Wehrlein endured disastrous weekends, setting up a title decider at the London season finale on 15-16 August.
Rain had threatened all weekend across Rounds 14 and 15, and the changeable conditions made Sunday's race nearly impossible to call. Edoardo Mortara had topped both practice sessions and lined up second for Saturday's opener, but a fifth-place finish was all he could salvage after running in podium contention for much of it. De Vries fared worse on Saturday, unable to recover from a first-lap puncture that dropped him to 17th, a result that made his Sunday turnaround all the more breathtaking.
His one-lap pace carried into Sunday's Duels, where Mortara beat Antonio Felix da Costa by six tenths in the Final to take a fourth pole of the year, equalling the record for the most poles in a single Formula E season and setting new personal and team marks. De Vries progressed through the same Duels stage and started fifth on the grid.
The race got underway behind the Safety Car, with a reconnaissance lap taken in wet conditions before Mortara held his advantage off the line to lead. De Vries slipped to seventh early on, and matters got worse for him when da Costa deployed Attack Mode on Lap 3 to relegate Mortara to second and build a comfortable gap out front, while de Vries struggled on tyre pressures set for a drying track. As the laps wore on and the track dried, the field that had scattered in the wet phase gradually closed back up.
Mortara used his first Attack Mode on Lap 14 to close within a second of da Costa, but a Full Course Yellow neutralised the race before he could attempt the pass. He couldn't find a way by at the restart either, and began slipping back through the field as tyre pressures turned decisive.
De Vries, meanwhile, used his first Attack Mode allocation to climb to sixth, then triggered his remaining six minutes on Lap 26 to surge through the front runners and into the lead, passing Oliver Rowland, whose own late Attack Mode deployment came just too late to hold position. Mortara had by then slipped to 10th.
With two laps to go, Mortara and Envision's Joel Eriksson made contact at Turn 7, collecting da Costa, Dan Ticktum and the Lola cars of Lucas di Grassi and Zane Maloney in a multi-car pile-up that brought out the red flag and ended Mortara's race.
The action resumed for a single lap to the chequered flag, and de Vries held off a fast-closing Nick Cassidy and Jake Dennis, both on Attack Mode, to master the changeable conditions and take his second win of the season. It marked the first time Mahindra Racing has taken multiple victories in a single season since 2017/18. Oliver Rowland finished fourth and Jean-Eric Vergne fifth.
The win lifted de Vries to ninth in the Drivers' Standings, with Mortara fifth, while Dennis moved into the points lead with two rounds left in London. In the Teams' Standings, Mahindra Racing leaves Tokyo with 210 points, one behind third-placed Andretti ahead of the final two races of the campaign.
Celebrating his second victory for Mahindra, Nyck de Vries said: "We were a little bit lucky today. We opted for a drying track and in hindsight that worked out in our favour. We got a poor start, but I think it was very important to save energy at the beginning of the race because once the track dried, you needed it. We had some more luck at the end with the red flag because Jake [Dennis] was coming on strong in Attack Mode. I'm very happy and proud of the team who executed a great race to get our second win of the season."
After a weekend which showed a lot of promise, Edoardo Mortara commented: "It's a disappointing result on a day when we showed quite a lot of performance. When you start from pole and everything is fully wet, there's very little to gamble. I started with the wet set-up, and this wasn't the right call. But fortunately, we split the strategy and it worked out very well for Nyck [de Vries], so I'm very happy for the team."
Commenting on a special result for Mahindra, Team Principal & CEO Frederic Bertrand added: "First of all, it was a strong result for the team in what was a challenging weekend. Amazing pace from our two drivers over one lap, and in particular Edoardo [Mortara] securing P2 yesterday and pole position today, as well as Nyck getting P5 on the grid today. It shows we are the most competitive right now when it comes to Qualifying.
This weekend was challenging from a strategic and energy management perspective. Edoardo did an excellent job yesterday to secure fifth position after a tough race with Sebastien Buemi. Today was a bit more of a gamble with the set-up, but Nyck managed an impressive drive to take his second win of the season, which has really had a big impact for us in the Teams' Championship."
Rounds 16 and 17 of the 2025/26 FIA Formula E World Championship take place in London on 15 and 16 August, with nine drivers still mathematically in contention for the title.
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