Stoffel Vandoorne secured victory in Tokyo after the Season Eight World Champion capitalised on a red flag midway through the race.
The Maserati driver adopted an aggressive strategy by using up his state of charge early to enable an early pitboost stop, which he took on lap 11.
Maximilian Günther came to a stop on lap 13, prompting a red flag due to his car displaying a flashing red light—indicating it could not be touched by marshals.
No other driver had taken their pitboost stop at that point, allowing Vandoorne to catch up to the back of the pack during the stoppage. When the rest of the field completed their mandatory pitboost stops, Vandoorne overtook them, gaining a substantial advantage.
This handed Vandoorne a 25-second lead over pole-sitter Oliver Rowland. Despite a spin at Turn 2, the Belgian managed to recover without relinquishing his lead.
Vandoorne cruised to the finish to claim his first win since the 2022 Monaco E-Prix and the fourth victory of his Formula E career.
Rowland finished the race in second and would likely have dominated the E-Prix if it hadn’t been for the red flag. The British driver, who leads the championship, was still able to extend his lead over the Porsche pair of António Félix da Costa and Pascal Wehrlein.
The championship leader started the race on pole, but didn’t receive the three extra points for it, as qualifying was cancelled due to heavy rain. The grid was instead set based on the lap times from Free Practice 2.
Taylor Barnard, who crashed in FP1, managed to secure a podium for McLaren. The Brit had a strong start and moved up to third place after starting fourth.
He used his PitBoost strategy to get ahead of Edoardo Mortara, although the Mahindra driver had more Attack Mode time remaining than Barnard.
However, Mortara encountered an issue with his second Attack Mode activation and couldn’t challenge Barnard, which allowed the 20-year-old to secure another podium this season.
Sébastien Buemi finished fourth for Envision Racing after opting to take Attack Mode on the first lap of racing. The race began behind the safety car. The grid completed four laps behind the safety car, which opened the Attack Mode window on lap three.
As a result, drivers were able to activate Attack Mode on the first lap of green flag racing, and Buemi used that opportunity to move his car toward the front and maintain position with strong pace.
Dan Ticktum had another solid performance and finished fifth for Kiro. Mortara, who had been running in fourth, fell to sixth after his Attack Mode issue cost him a chance at the podium and led to the loss of two positions.
Da Costa came home in seventh for Porsche, ahead of Nyck de Vries, who was caught up in a collision with Mitch Evans during the race and finished eighth.
Jean-Éric Vergne finished ninth for DS Penske, just ahead of Robin Frijns in tenth, driving the second Envision Racing car.
Jake Dennis was disqualified from the race after entering the pit lane for his PitBoost during the standing start procedure, violating regulations that prohibit pit lane entry when it is closed. As a result, he was removed from the final classification.
Mitch Evans also retired following a collision with Nyck de Vries, which caused significant damage to his car. Additionally, Maximilian Günther did not finish the race after bringing out the red flag.
