The 2024-25 Formula E has taken another step towards its endgame with a thrilling Jakarta E-Prix that made one of its most talked-about stars a first-time winner in the series.
Here's Sam Smith's picks for the biggest winners and losers from round 12 of 16.
Winner: Dan Ticktum
In Formula E terms Dan Ticktum went from quirky upstart to slick pro, not over the course of a few races, but really over the duration of the last year or so.
Now with a package that befits his quality as a driver, the milestones are getting ticked off quickly. Consistent performances, fewer hysterics, the podium in Tokyo and then this win at Jakarta. Finally, we have the real Ticktum showing up for business.
“It's difficult to say this without sounding arrogant,” he began, post-race, in somewhat typical Ticktum style.
“But, you know, this is kind of where I feel I should be. I can't say it without sounding arrogant, but I've proved it in the past in other categories. So, it's kind of like it's happened now here.
“Obviously inside there's a lot of emotions, I’m very, very happy. I think Formula E and the team have given me a fantastic platform to be ‘me’ so far. And I've really, really enjoyed this season.
“This (in Formula E) is going to be a place that hopefully in the next maybe decade where I make a very good career.”
No one doubts that, now. In Jakarta, ironically the scene of his infamous tragi-comic rant of fury two years ago, he finally broke his Formula E victory duck and also netted the Cupra Kiro team (as in the racing licence under its various guises) first win since Nelson Piquet Jr won in Moscow almost a decade to the day.
Ticktum worked damn hard for it too.
“Edo was quite comfortably faster than me in the last few laps,” he added.
“But because the (energy) targets went high, he sort of couldn't really overtake. He didn't make it easy for me.”
There was some fortune in Ticktum’s win with the Jake Dennis and Nyck de Vries problems, but there was also tenacity from him and his team. This was a very well-deserved and much-needed breakthrough.
Loser - Nyck de Vries
De Vries has generally been excellent this season, but as ever in his Formula E career, with the brilliance and pace comes an erratic nature that spills over into reckless moves.
His clash with Dennis is detailed elsewhere, but it ultimately would have cost him hugely anyway, even had he not suffered the technical issue that saw him retire late in the race.
We have contact at the front of the pack! 🫨
— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) June 21, 2025
De Vries makes the move on Dennis causing the Andretti front wing to fly off.#JakartaEPrix pic.twitter.com/oJiupxaupi
Prior to all that, De Vries was very impressive, with slick qualifying laps, vaulting Taylor Barnard's McLaren off the line and then shadowing Dennis, gaining a bit of energy as he did so.
His attack modes were carried out well, and he was a genuine threat to Dennis after passing Nick Cassidy and minimising any lost time, something he did in conjunction with team-mate Edo Mortara too.
But when it came to a crucial moment in vaulting Dennis and making use of the final dregs of his attack mode boost, he fluffed his lines with a too forceful swipe to claim the optimum line into Turn 1.
It reminded one a bit of London in 2022 when he chopped Cassidy’s Envision Audi up a treat. He was ultimately penalised for that, and it is something that remains part of his racecraft and has even promoted, along with other drivers, it has to be said, a review into defensive etiquette in wheel-to-wheel combat.
It would be a shame to besmirch or denigrate de Vries’ Jakarta and define it as this incident. But ultimately, it will be remembered as the defining face of it, sadly.
Winner: Andretti
Andretti had a stinker in Shanghai at the start of the month, gathering just eight points. In fact, since the first Monaco race, it’s been a rare barren spell for the team with just 22 points from the last five races.
So, coming to Jakarta, Andretti needed to get back on track, and with Jake Dennis’ pole and Nico Mueller’s much-needed podium, it certainly achieved that.
But the sweet taste has more than a bitter aftertaste too, as Dennis was left to rue what should have been his first win since his victory in Diriyah last January.
It wasn’t meant to be, though, as a mysterious issue with de-engaging the full course yellow mode cost what should have been a reasonably straightforward win for Dennis, who had an attack mode offset to eventual winner Ticktum.
“The race win was there for us to take,” Andretti team principal Roger Griffiths told The Race.
"We had an issue coming out of full course yellow, and the car just didn't accelerate. It's not 100% understood at this point as to what happened.
“We have been having steering wheel issues all weekend on that car. A variety of functionality has not been working as anticipated, and it wasn't the first time the steering wheel misbehaved. It had been changed during the course of the weekend. Maybe it's not physical hardware. Maybe it's something else, but we need to dig through it."
There was praise for Mueller, who took his first Formula E podium since the 2021 Valencia E-Prix when he was with Dragon Penske, but also a swipe at the testing regulations, which minimise in-season development for customer teams.
“We were testing last week (at Varano), our only in-season test really all year,” said Griffiths.
“I think it really shows the importance of being able to test. And the disparity, if you like, between manufacturer-backed teams and privateer teams. I know it's something the FIA is working on.
“For us to be able to get half a day each for both drivers and allow us to do something away from a race weekend has actually paid some good dividends for us.”
Winner: Mahindra
A bitter/sweet one clearly for Mahindra. But despite Nyck de Vries’ strong but ultimately fruitless race, on the whole it should feel very proud of its strongest performance of the season to date.
Edoardo Mortara’s return to a podium for the first time since he won at Seoul in August 2022 was the stand-out highlight on a weekend when, finally, he got the rub of the green.
Mortara elected on discretion rather than valour in the last few laps despite being quicker than Ticktum. Additionally, within the context of the desperation Ticktum had in hunting his first win, this was probably the right call.
Summing up his team’s endeavours, Frederic Bertrand said that “globally, it was a good weekend for us because we have always been fast, so that was really good, whatever the conditions have been.
“A super good race from Edo, a good start despite the bad side of the track, but on the other side able to keep the position, keep it clean, right call for the strategy side and good job from the team on moving to attack mode at the right moment, not losing too many places or even not losing places, and then be able to gain.”
Bertrand though, was also perhaps the only person in the paddock to believe that the De Vries and Dennis incident was more nuanced.
“From what I just saw on TV, and I didn't look again and again and again, I would feel that it's kind of a 50-50 where they both tried to stay on the line and probably did the manoeuvre a little bit too early and then touched,” he said.
“I'm not necessarily super clear on why the FIA only thought that there was a penalty for Nyck, for me it's kind of a move from the two sides where they both didn't want to be on the dirty side I suppose.
“For sure in one moment you can imagine you have the win and the other side you can have the double podium, so you start to become super demanding, but if I take the target which we have since the very beginning which is 10 points per race, it's 18pts here, that's good.”
Loser: Pascal Wehrlein
Wehrlein arrived in Indonesia after a strong Le Mans debut, but his Jakarta E-Prix was one of his most disappointing in a long time.
“It was just a poor qualifying, which resulted in the poor day we had,” was his summary to The Race.
Trying to get through the pack amid a track surface that had only one distinctive line was always going to be a big ask. Then again, Robin Frijns managed it.
“Going a bit offline is a huge penalty and it makes overtaking even more tricky and it caught us in qualifying,” added Wehrlein.
“I just went with my rear tyre a bit on the dust and lost the car. That meant we were poor in qualifying and then after the penalty even worse.”
That penalty referred to a backing off/blocking wrap that Wehrlein received after trying to find a gap at Turn 17.
“It is a lesson learned, but at the same time, everyone would do the same and gap if you get overtaken into the second last corner. But the rules are the rules and it is what it is.”
Wehrlein’s boss Florian Modlinger was a little more candid about the penalty.
“Di Grassi passed him then he slowed down again and in this part of the track he should not have slowed down according to the driver's briefing,” he told The Race.
“We accept the three positions (penalty), but also we want to have it more consistently applied in general because when you see in Antonio's [Felix da Costa] group, Antonio reported two times a car slowing down between Turn 17 and Turn 18. He had to brake on the wet areas in a fast lap and behind Pascal the guys were all on a cool-down lap.
“We are accepting the three grid positions and penalty points, but clearly wishing for more consistent behaviour (from the stewards)."
Whatever the rationale and outlook, Wehrlein lost a point to champion elect Oliver Rowland and with it perhaps a final realistic chance of a long shot, fairytale defence of his championship crown.
Winner: Envision Racing
It seemed like it might be a familiar story for Envision when Robin Frijns ended his first practice session in the wall after a suspension failure and then Sebastien Buemi pirouetted on the skittish track.
It was also a tale of woe for Frijns in qualifying as he lined up dead last, but Buemi had an excellent run to start a decent seventh, further cementing his reputation as a senior driver who might have more to give in Formula E.
Therefore, the double points finish was a majorly impressive return for Envision. But it could and should have been so much more, as Buemi was in line to get a podium had it not been for a clash with Mortara.
This appeared to be on the harsher side of judgements but Buemi got added five-seconds on his finishing time and was presented a penalty point for his trouble, moving from third to eighth as a consequence.
Frijns pulled off an excellent race coming from 22nd to ninth after nailing his strategy, surviving a Beckmann ambush and gaining an additional spot when Rowland’s penalty for his Guenther shunt was applied at the end of the race.
Loser - Stellantis
All of a sudden Tokyo feels like it was a very long-time ago for Maserati MSG. A poor first Shanghai race has been followed by their most abject of a very erratic season.
Both of its cars suffered issues with their spec front-powertrain, which in turn caused catastrophic brake issues. In the case of Jake Hughes, it stopped him at Turn 1, while team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne was left nursing a sore back after a very unpleasant accident.
The precise cause is understood by The Race to have been overheating of the FPK which in turn cooked the 12 volt battery unit and then shut off the main battery. Both drivers saw temperature alarms manifest themselves early in the race, meaning that they likely knew they were doomed to some extent.
It leaves Maserati now in eighth position in the teams’ standings having been vaulted by Andretti and Jaguar. Indeed, Cupra Kiro and Envision Racing are now within striking distance of a team that feels like it now just needs to get to the end of the season and rebuild itself.
Maserati’s Stellantis stablemates DS Penske were also point-less, but its misfortune was triggered by driver error – Vergne clouting Evans in the early stages and Guenther getting blended into the wall by a ducking and diving Rowland. Losers all, it was a very tough day for the Stellantis mob.
Winner: Oliver Rowland
A single point, a bruising race involving lots of contact, yet still Rowland came away from Jakarta with an extended title lead.
The overwhelming feeling is that he will tie-up the title in Berlin next month and despite difficult races like Jakarta he will thoroughly deserve it when it lands.
He came back from a tough couple of practice sessions where he said he “just never really felt comfortable with the car".
This was likely tyre related and after he looked to be getting to grips with everything he “did a bad job, hit the wall, made a bit of a mess of it on my side” in qualifying.
The Nissan ace’s race may have been busy but it was also executed well and he ran as high as sixth from 16th on the grid.
“To be honest I was behind Muller at one point with two-minutes more attack mode, but then I had to play the game to try and keep who I needed to keep behind me,” he told The Race.
Once his time penalty was applied for his Guenther altercation, Rowland was classified 10th, a point that enhanced his lead over Pascal Wehrlein to a 69 points advantage with just a maximum of 116 points up for grabs over four races and two tracks, both of which Rowland has previously won on.
“It's looking good as it would take a Herculean effort and then an absolutely terrible one from me to change that (the title picture),” he told The Race.
“I'm actually a little bit disappointed with my one lap pace and I need to go away and improve it, so for me Berlin will just be purely focused on how we can improve and bring that one lap pace a little bit better."
A warning though. Berlin is a track that Nissan really struggled at last year and that was on Rowland’s mind flying out to Jakarta.
“I already knew that coming into this weekend. So, I wanted to make sure I didn't lose too much here, knowing I could lose. But now I'm focused on really trying to make Berlin better and see what we can do there.”
Loser: Jakarta Track
There has always been more than a little of a gnarly undercurrent to the Jakarta street track. The ‘Zandvoort of the East’ is by the beach and has a big issue with sand, dust and grime.
This season it seemed to be more of an issue than the two previous times Formula E has visited the Indonesian capital. Rooster tails of muck and sand spewed from the cars throughout the weekend and despite the best efforts of the FIA and local service providers there was never anything remotely approaching a decent track surface for single-seater cars. Rallycross cars yes, but not the world’s only electric single-seater World Championship.
What it constituted was a single racing line of tyre tracks that represented any kind of grip. Get out of that and you were skating off to the local shops.
For the race this meant that drivers were not able to overtake on the 300kW mode or even attempt it. When they did it ended in disaster with a prime example being Jean-Eric Vergne clouting Mitch Evans.
“It is unacceptable,” said reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein.
“I am even struggling with vision. My eyes are blurry. I have so much dust in my eyes that it is painful.
“I am struggling to breath because of all the dust you breathe in. I am shocked that we had those conditions this weekend. It is nowhere close to where it should be.”
Upon request the FIA provided The race with a statement, which read: “The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship races in some of the most iconic and unique locations around the world - often as the first major motor sport event in a country or region.
“It’s part of the DNA of the championship and something we should all be proud of. This does mean that we occasionally face unique challenges, and heavy rain in combination with the heat in Jakarta encountered in the days prior to the race meant that track surface conditions were sub-optimal.
“Safety being the FIA’s priority, we constantly monitored the situation, with regular use of road sweepers between every session, allowing the cars to run in safe conditions.”
Formula E has a uniqueness to it and sometimes part of that is a certain rough and readiness. But the Jakarta track conditions went far beyond those and clearly need to be improved should it return to the Indonesian capital via a new deal for next season and beyond.
