'Unsporting'? 'Crashed on purpose'? - Formula E Tokyo fury explained
A frantic first Tokyo E-Prix race yielded a major disagreement between Formula E title rivals Antonio Felix da Costa and Pascal Wehrlein - and the Envision team that both felt was in the wrong.
Envision adapted its race strategy after Sebastien Buemi was given a five-second penalty for contact with Nyck de Vries on the first lap of the race when the field bunched up into Turn 7.
It then went for an early six-minute attack mode hit on lap 14, and Buemi climbed from 13th to second place by lap 18 of the race.
But when the regular pit window opened up and cars started to take regular stops, Buemi dropped his pace - allowing Edoardo Mortara, Da Costa and Wehrlein in third, fourth and fifth positions to close up on the Envision rapidly going into Turns 6 and 7.
The former teammates collided at Turn 8 😅
— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) July 25, 2026
A collision between DAC and Wehrlein sends the former into the wall #TDKTokyoEPrix #FormulaE pic.twitter.com/2iHEnHbIdA
The resulting chaos saw Wehrlein and Da Costa make contact several times, with the Porsche breaking its wing and suspension, while the Jaguar ace ended up in the TecPro barrier.
“I’m very disappointed because I think we did the perfect race, we had more than two percent on the leaders,” said Da Costa.
“We had the perfect strategy to win it. Maybe we would have had a bit of a fight with Ticktum, but I thought this one could be ours. For some reason that I can’t understand, when the pit window opened, Buemi pulled the handbrake and lost four seconds in three corners. It’s very unsporting.
“I can’t be mad at Seb because he is only following orders from his team, but I am very disappointed. Especially them being a Jaguar [customer] team, I would have hoped for some sort of comms or a warning.
“When Buemi does that, it opens the chance for people to come alongside you and we were two, three wide. And when you have a guy [Wehrlein] that is a direct competitor in the championship, and what Pascal did was very unsporting.
“He crashed me out on purpose. He had damage from the corner before and I think he decided that if he is out, I am out, too.
Da Costa emphasised that his issue was not with Buemi per se, but more with his engineering and strategy team - and his own in terms of specific communication on how and why the pace dropped.
“My problem is not with Buemi, it is with his team and his strategy team,” said Da Costa.
“We also have to blame ourselves a bit as well, because we should have been able to spot that and avoid it.
“But if there’s one team we try to race with more respect, it’s the other Jaguar powertrain team. We try not to trip over each other, but today we did the opposite. The one car that doesn’t have the same colour as mine that I am hoping to get a slightly easier time from, they put my race in the bin today.”
Buemi’s view
Buemi, who was nursing a badly-bruised hand after his penalty-inducing first lap hit on De Vries, told The Race that his drop in pace was an attempt to help team-mate Joel Eriksson come through the field.
“It [the strategy] was on the go, and I think the team realised that obviously me slowing everyone down would obviously help massively, which it did, it did ultimately,” said Buemi.
When asked if that was a fair method of running a race, knowing he had a five-second penalty, Buemi said that “whether that's totally fair or not, it's another discussion”.
“I got instructed to do that and I just did what the team told me to do.
“But yeah, you may think it's correct or not, obviously it's not forbidden to do that. That's it. I just did that and obviously I don't think I made lots of friends.”
Buemi was not aware of the chaos that unfolded behind him, saying that he “got told after because obviously we were trying to work hard with Jaguar and obviously when you compromise the races of the other guys you're not very happy with that.”
Wehrlein’s Take
“I don't know what the plan was with Buemi, why he was trying to hold up this whole group,” a clearly unhappy Wehrlein told The Race.
The Porsche driver also opined that when the pit window opened he expected the pace to increase before scheduled pitstops because “usually you push and increase the pace, to virtually overtake or not be overtaken by other guys”.
“He [Buemi] did exactly the opposite, so there was for sure a strategy behind it. Depends on from whom he was giving that call,” said Wehrlein, hinting at collusion between Jaguar and Envision.
“I think if that was the case - and it really looked like that - it goes way too far to use your customer team to back off the group, which didn't work.
“There's always a bit of a game that towards the end of the season, you're supporting the best guy in the standings, that you're not driving super hard against him or that you swapped a position or whatever.
“But to actively change the race, we've never done that. I'm just surprised how it was and what the reason was.”
On his incident with Da Costa, for which he received a 10-second penalty, Wehrlein said that he went “side by side with Antonio, so I overtook almost two cars”.
Muller picked up a puncture after going wheel-to-wheel with da Costa 🛞#TDKTokyoEPrix #FormulaE pic.twitter.com/epaKpqJY7Q
— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) July 25, 2026
“In that sequence of corners [T6 and T7] then I was on the inside, there's a rule in that sequence of corners where you need to be given space on the inside if you are side by side the corner before.
“I wasn't being given that. I got pushed into the inside wall and that destroyed my race,” concluded Wehrlein, who lost his nine-point advantage to rival Mitch Evans, who came through from 16th to fourth to now hold a three-point buffer over Wehrlein.
Adding to Porsche's miserable day was that Nico Mueller had suffered damage to his car after contact with Da Costa's Jaguar on the first lap. That came after the team rebuilt the Swiss driver’s car around a new survival cell after an accident in the semi-final stage of qualifying when he went up against eventual polesitter Jake Dennis.
