Oliver Rowland's unstoppable progress towards the 2024-25 Formula E title continued with a hard-fought win in a dry second race of his Nissan team's home round in Japan, ahead of reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein and first-time FE podium finisher Dan Ticktum.
Pole-winner Rowland looked like he might've blown this one when he left his attack modes late and consequently fell back to sixth, then made little progress with his first deployment of two minutes.
But taking his second shot of six minutes of attack mode just before the lead group grabbed their remaining four minutes turned his race around - getting Rowland back up to second behind Wehrlein almost immediately. He then had 40 more seconds of attack mode remaining when Wehrlein's expired, and used it to squeeze through a small gap into the lead.
Rowland then had to conserve energy, creating a fraught wheel-to-wheel pack behind him featuring Wehrlein, Ticktum, McLaren's Taylor Barnard, Jake Dennis - up from 14th to fourth via taking attack mode at a moment barely anyone else had it - and Edoardo Mortara.
In the middle of it Mortara hit Barnard, breaking his rear suspension and sending him into the wall in an incident that brought out the safety car and cooled down the outstanding race that had been developing.
Rowland had enough energy left to keep Wehrlein at arm's length over the one-lap dash to the flag that followed.
Ticktum's first Formula E podium in third was the strongest evidence yet of the superb progress he and his reorganised and now Porsche-powered Cupra Kiro team are making.
He'd qualified second to Rowland and led for a long spell after his first attack mode, before a mid-race change of places with works Porsche driver Wehrlein, who he was happy to attack for position repeatedly in the late queue behind Rowland.
Behind fourth-placed Dennis, a five-second penalty for taking Barnard out dropped Mortara to 12th in the results and let Lola Yamaha Abt driver Lucas di Grassi up to fifth.
Wehrlein's team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa would've been in the podium mix too had he not clouted Mortara and broken his suspension as the field slowed for an early full course yellow for debris.
Jaguar's dismal run continued with Nick Cassidy salvaging seventh by timing attack mode well having initially run in the midfield and team-mate Mitch Evans not even starting after a qualifying crash caused damage that couldn't be repaired in time.
Leading finishers
1 Oliver Rowland (Nissan)
2 Pascal Wehrlein (Porsche)
3 Dan Ticktum (Kiro)
4 Jake Dennis (Andretti)
5 Lucas di Grassi (Lola Yamaha)
6 Jean-Eric Vergne (DS Penske)
7 Nick Cassidy (Jaguar)
8 Sam Bird (McLaren)
9 Sebastien Buemi (Envision)
10 Maximilian Guenther (DS Penske)
