- Evans charges from 17th to claim a record-extending 16th Formula E victory.
- A tyre gamble and six-minute Attack Mode call separated Evans from the field.
- Evans trails now championship leader Pascal Wehrlein by just three points.
Mitch Evans won the second race of the 2026 Berlin E-Prix at the Tempelhof Airport Circuit on Sunday, charging from 17th on the grid to take the chequered flag.
The victory was his 16th in Formula E, extending his record as the most successful driver in the championship’s history.
He crossed the line 0.822 seconds ahead of Nissan’s Oliver Rowland, with polesitter Pascal Wehrlein finishing third for Porsche.
Evans is now three points behind Wehrlein in the drivers’ standings, with Edoardo Mortara a further five points back in third.
A gamble born from qualifying frustration
Evans’ low starting position was not an accident. He used older tyres in qualifying to save a fresher set for the race, a call he made in response to a difficult season of one-lap pace.
“I’ve been really slow all weekend over one lap,” Evans said, as reported by RACER.
“Most of the season I’ve been really slow, well, been struggling compared to what I normally am in qualifying, so with the race today I kind of put it to the team to try and save the tires and just accept the start towards the back.”
Starting near the back at Tempelhof carries a hidden benefit.
The abrasive circuit punishes energy use heavily. The drivers further back can sit in the slipstream, conserve their charge, and wait for rivals ahead to run dry.
Chaos at the front, calm at the back
Taylor Barnard led into the first corner after lights out, while Wehrlein dropped back as drivers began managing energy.
The pace slowed sharply in the opening laps, and the congested field produced contact almost immediately.
On lap four, Nyck de Vries was struck by team-mate Edoardo Mortara at Turn 6 and was retired with suspension damage.
Nick Cassidy, caught in the same incident, later pitted for a new front wing and effectively lost any chance of a points finish.
Jean-Éric Vergne led on lap 19 after using Attack Mode, but could not hold the position. Norman Nato then moved to the front from 16th using his own boost, as the race continued to shuffle through leaders.
The decisive moment: Evans takes control
Evans was inside the top 10 by lap 24. Three laps later, he had the lead.
His strategy separated him from the rest. Most drivers split their Attack Mode into two four-minute windows.
Evans took a single six-minute activation for his first use, giving himself a sustained energy advantage through the field rather than a short burst.
He explained the thinking after the race, speaking to RACER.
“With my race, it was just all about patience and just waiting for the right time to go for my first Attack,” he said. “My energy advantage was obviously pretty big, from what I was hearing, so I was just biding my time.”
Evans added that he was uncertain whether waiting so long had cost him.
“The other guys that were doing my strategy went a little bit earlier, and I wasn’t sure if I maybe missed the window or not, but I was pretty confident waiting was going to pay off, and it did.”
A three-way fight to the flag
Wehrlein attacked Evans once the Jaguar driver took the lead.
On lap 33, Wehrlein briefly moved ahead using his second Attack Mode activation. Evans retook the position as soon as Wehrlein’s extra power ran out.
Rowland was also closing fast. With five laps remaining, he was chasing Evans hard on his remaining Attack Mode, with Wehrlein close behind.
With two laps to go, a full-course yellow was deployed after contact between Nico Mueller and António Félix da Costa left debris on the main straight.
The stoppage erased Evans’ carefully built gap and pushed the top three together for a sprint finish.
Evans held on through the final two laps to take the win. As he crossed the line, he said only two words over the radio: “Patience, man… patience.”
Title race tightens ahead of Monaco
Wehrlein leads the drivers’ championship, having reclaimed the top spot from Mortara, who did not score on Sunday.
Evans sits second, three points behind, with Mortara a further five back in third. Rowland’s two podiums across the Berlin weekend moved him up the standings as well.
In the constructors’ tables, Porsche holds a 13-point lead over Jaguar in the teams’ standings and a 14-point lead in the manufacturers’ championship.
Evans heads to Monaco three points from the top of the standings. It is also his final season with Jaguar. Berlin showed, again, that when the race is long and the energy margins are tight, few drivers in Formula E can match him.
