The Formula E Chaos Continues

I have a new rule: Don’t bring Formula 1 logistics to a Formula E race.

Yes, kids, I watched the second round just days before the first livery reveal for the next F1 season. Why? Well, if you were here last time I watched FE, you would know I found it more riveting than I expected. It’s different enough from its prestigious cousin to keep me surprised at every turn, but similar enough to scratch my formula racing itch while we wait for the livery reveals.

But that didn’t stop me from defaulting into F1 season logistics when I watched the latest race in Mexico City. I assumed Jake Dennis would continue his championship lead, with Oliver Rowland and Nick Cassidy right behind him. On top of that, I assumed he drivers who scored in the middle would remain in the middle, and the ones who left São Paulo without points would (for the most part) remain points-less.

Boy, how wrong I was.

Qualifying was a near-reversal of what I saw last time. Some differences were certainly a given, as officials can now use the official criteria to separate drivers into their two qualifying groups— one for the odd-numbered ranks, one for the even. But even accounting for that, the inversion was hard to ignore. Jake Dennis didn’t even make it past the qualifying quarterfinals, beaten in just seventeen-hundredths of a second.

In fact, none of the then-top-five in the Drivers’ Championship made it to the final knockout. Instead, the final face-off was between British driver Taylor Barnard and Swissman Sébastien Buemi, neither of whom, might I add, even made it to the duels in the São Paulo opening round. That’s one of the things that keeps this series interesting, and also the exact point where my F1 brain short-circuited. Grid position is more like a hypothesis the race sets out to disprove instead of a preview of the action to come.

But it all went wrong for Buemi once the lights went out While maneuvering the first turn, the Swiss severely misjudged his braking point, ran wide, and plunged from the front to 17th place almost immediately. That misstep cost him not just track position, but also the clean rhythm drivers need in the opening laps. Even after clawing his way back toward the points with efficient Attack Mode timing and energy saving, a puncture forced an extra pit stop that wiped out any chance of redemption… leaving him only with the three points for Pole Position.

It was the kind of chaos that reminded me of the F1 Sprint Race in Austin (the one where Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri crashed into each other before the race found its rhythm and everyone in my section cheered.) Sure, it wasn’t as dramatic as what had happened in Austin, but it carried the same destabilizing energy. The default race narrative had been ripped up before it could properly begin, and now it’s anyone’s game to win.

So who ended up taking the first-place trophy? New Zealander (and new championship lead) Nick Cassidy, who, funnily enough, is one of the drivers I’m starting to “get”. He finished second in the championship last season, and I’m already getting his appeal.

Cassidy isn’t the strongest qualifier. He hasn’t made it to the duels in any of the races this season so far. He only made pole position once last season (and that was in a qualifying session heavily shortened due to adverse weather conditions). He started the Mexico City race 13th on the grid. There’s nothing wrong with that— every driver has their weak spots, after all.

Besides, he more than made up for qualifying during the race itself. Through well-timed energy use and Attack Mode activations (as well as a couple of DNFs along the way), he clawed his way from P13 to P1. He was even in the points by the halfway point, when the race got yellow-flagged after Nyck de Vries’ car stopped working.

By lap 30, Cassidy had threaded his way into the lead, using pace and positioning to outmaneuver drivers who had started higher up but burned through their usable battery earlier. And despite a solid attempt from São Paulo race winner Jake Dennis to brute-force his way into first, Cassidy maintained his lead and never surrendered it. And while Dennis got a point for fastest lap, he only managed a fifth-place finish.

That finish flips the early championship on its head. Nick Cassidy now leads the standings thanks to his 13th-to-1st charge. The reshuffling is the kind you don’t usually expect just two races in, but it’s exactly what Formula E’s structure encourages. When battery management and mid-race decision making eclipse grid position, the standings reshuffle with every lap, and that’s what makes following this championship feel like betting on chaos.

And we love our chaos here in Flowergothland.

Until next time,

F