I Watched Formula E for the First Time and Was Pleasantly Surprised

It’s been a week since the end of a dramatic Formula 1 season, and I’ll admit it, I’m bored. We have over a month to go before preseason testing begins, and at first, I was at a loss for what my first post-season piece should be about. The FIA prize-giving ceremony? No one cares about that. The latest team drama? Writers better than me have already covered Helmut Marko’s abrupt retirement, and I don’t want to speculate on Gianpiero “GP” Lambiase’s future. What am I ever to do?

The answer was to look at other race series that run during the downtime. And I was in luck, because this month, the all-electric Formula E series began its 12th season in São Paulo.

Formula E, as a concept, has fascinated me ever since I first got into racing. You have these jagged, angular single-seaters that look like they’re from a German expressionist film. Driving those cars are drivers who either didn’t do well enough to be promoted to/stay for long in F1 or are too old for F1 (I did the math; while the average age of the 2026 F1 grid is almost 28, the average age of this season’s FE grid is over 30!). These cars are almost exclusively driven on street circuits. And to top it off, every team runs the same chassis, a living nightmare for F1 traditionalists.

How does car performance differ if everyone runs the same chassis? Easy— since the cars are electric, the real battlefield is everything you bolt onto and inside the vehicle. Teams develop their own powertrains, gearboxes, rear suspension, and so on. The challenge becomes who can squeeze the most speed and power from the machinery.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself here. I promised a review of the opening round of Formula E, not a detailed explanation of how the series actually works. Besides, even the F1 feeder series have quirks the casual viewer doesn’t understand. I don’t expect you to understand everything about the electric cars (but if you want to, Jodie Writes Racing is a great place to start).

So, let’s travel once again to São Paulo.

All of the action in Formula E takes place over a single day. You have a free practice in the early morning, qualifying about an hour later, and then the race in the early afternoon. It feels almost violently efficient when compared to Formula 1’s three-day extravaganzas. You wake up, the cars run, someone gets pole position, and by mid-afternoon, the race is done, and the champagne has been sprayed. If you’re watching from home, it feels like a compact, self-contained event instead of a full weekend lifestyle package.

And that’s how it felt when I rewatched the São Paulo ePrix. For one thing, the stands during free practice were empty. Not “only a handful of people on the stands”, but empty. Grandstands built for thousands of people, and the only people you see aside from the drivers are the track marshals. It was a little eerie, to be honest. It looked less like the opening round of a championship and more like a dress rehearsal.

But then, the practice itself began. The scream of the electrified cars snapped me into attention. It’s not the guttural roar you expect from an F1 engine, but something sharper. Something sharper and more insect-like, I feel. They slice across the circuit, buzzing and whining through the concrete canyons, and the empty grandstands turn that sound into an echo chamber. And for a moment, I forgot that no one was in the stands. It was just 20 angry little machines carving lines into a half-awake city, impatient for the rest of the day to catch up.

Up next came qualifying, which is quite different from the F1 qualifying sessions I’m used to. I know I just said I wouldn’t go into detail about how FE is different, but context is important here— so bear with me as I give a summary. Instead of three knockout segments, FE splits the field into two groups for timed laps, then sends the quickest into head-to-head duels. It’s part time-trial; part playoff-bracket.

I won’t lie— I was confused at first. Watching it unfold was like watching two different races compressed into one. The group stage I was used to seeing, lap after lap, trying not to overcook it while still being fast enough to make the top spots.

While it was weird to see drivers treat the rest of the qualifying session like a tournament, I quickly got into it. The one-on-one brackets were more exciting than I anticipated, and I was glued to the screen in the way I usually am during a traditional qualifying session. Every duel felt consequential. With one missed braking point or brush with the wall, you could be out of the running— especially somewhere as unforgiving as a street circuit.

Much like F1, the FE qualifying had its fair share of drama. Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein came out with the fastest time, but was forced to take a three-place grid penalty for unsafe driving in the pit lane. The pole position was thus handed to the second-fastest driver, Jake Dennis— though Wehrlein still earned three points for setting the fastest qualifying time.

It was a very Formula 1 outcome: Speed is rewarded, but not without consequence. The penalty was even announced BEFORE the final qualifying between Wehrlein and Dennis— adding an extra layer of tension to a field of racing that thrives on it. One driver was effectively running for pole, knowing it might be stripped away, while the other knew he was going to get pole position as long as he didn’t give himself a penalty.

That kind of delayed clarification felt familiar in the most F1 way possible. Stewards looming in the background, timing everything just late enough to keep the racers (and viewers) on edge. I couldn’t help but think back to some of F1’s moments of delayed steward-vetting this past season, like McLaren’s double disqualification AFTER the Las Vegas GP. Results that initially appear settled are suddenly provisional, celebrations feel muted, and everyone waits for an official PDF to confirm what actually happened. In that moment, FE did not feel like the strange cousin of F1. Instead, it was like it inherited one of the championship’s most recognizable traits: speed first, certainty later.

And then came the race itself. Most of the race was much like a standard F1 bout, with the lead car surging past the others, the cars in the middle fighting for position with each other, and even a few surprise movers popping up inside the top 10. I sat back and relaxed, expecting the standard fare from a less-than-exciting Grand Prix.

But of the 20 drivers on the grid, only 13 crossed the finish line. How come? The remaining seven DNFed from the madness that street circuits are made for. Many simply collided with the wall or each other, like Dan Ticktum taking damage from Nyck de Vries and Norman Nato crashing into a barrier.

Nothing could prepare me for lap 27, though— Cupra Kiro rookie Pepe Martí defied gravity and launched into the air after misjudging a slowdown during a yellow flag, slamming into two other drivers before his car flipped and rolled. The impact was intense; more intense than anything I’ve ever seen during an F1 race. It was such a violent crash that a red flag was brought out— even with only two laps to go. Luckily, Martí was able to climb out of the car unscathed. But the moment was one of those that make you remember how dangerous street-circuit racing can be: a split-second misjudgment in an already compressed track could be the difference between winning the race and crashing horribly.

So how did the race end after such a turn of events? The race director decided on a one-lap sprint to the finish line, the kind of winner-takes-all any F1 fan would remember from the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. It was pure commitment under pressure.

And Jake Dennis came out on top under that pressure. The pole sitter surged through the lap to cross the finish line almost 1.5 seconds ahead of incumbent FE Drivers’ Champion, Oliver Rowland (he got one point for the fastest lap, though; FE still awards points for that). It was a thrilling end to an intense 30-lap spectacle.

Overall, the opener to the 12th Formula E season was far from underwhelming. Sure, it’s not the best of the best like it is in Formula 1, but that’s also the point. Formula E is where careers get re-routed, resurrected, and sharpened. The grid is full of drivers who are still world-class, just not positioned inside F1’s tiny funnel.

And honestly, São Paulo made a stronger case for itself than some mid-season F1 races do. The qualifying format forced pressure into every lap. The street circuit punished the smallest lapse in judgment. The late red flag turned the whole thing into sudden death. Then the one-lap finish asked a simple question: who can take it all when the script gets shredded? As we established, it’s Jake Dennis.

If you are bored in the F1 off-season, this might be the antidote. It’s in the winter, faster to watch, harder to predict, and rewards a different kind of intelligence. Not just bravery and pace, but restraint, timing, and survival in a pack that is always one nudge away from the wall.

Until next time,

F