FACTS AND STATS: Season 8 records fall, top-10 streaks, Diriyah doubles

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FACTS AND STATS: Season 8 records fall, top-10 streaks, Diriyah doubles

Season 9 and GEN3 continued to surprise with Porsche power doubling down on its Mexico City magic at the hands of Pascal Wehrlein and Jake Dennis. Streaks continued, drivers doubled up and it was a Diriyah of firsts for one new team. Here's Rounds 2 & 3 in numbers.

Diriyah start

- Diriyah saw Sebastien Buemi (Envision Racing), Jean-Eric Vergne (DS PENSKE) and Sam Bird (Jaguar TCS Racing) become Formula E centurions by competing in their 100th E-Prix - joining Lucas di Grassi in the 100-club after the Brazilian hit the century in the Season 8 Seoul finale. Diriyah also saw milestones for Pascal Wehrlein (who entered his 50th race) and Rast who competed in his 25th Formula E race

- Free Practice 2 was the first session that NIO 333's Dan Ticktum has topped in Formula E. Ticktum’s previous highest finish in a session was fourth place in FP3 in Rome in Season 8 (a weekend Ticktum also picked up a point). FP2 was also the first session topped by a NIO 333 driver since Oliver Turvey took pole position for the Season 3 Mexico City E-Prix

- In qualifying for Round 2, Buemi took his first Julius Baer Pole Position since New York City in Season 5 and his first front row start since Berlin in Season 6. Buemi now equals Vergne for the total number of pole positions in Formula E (15) and holds the record outright for the most front row starts (22)

- Buemi shared the front row with Jake Hughes on Friday. Buemi has now shared the front row with 16 different drivers in Formula E, which is a record. No other driver has shared the front row with more than 11 others

- The Swiss has now scored in three consecutive races to start this season - something he never did throughout the whole of Season 8

- Sam Bird claimed his first top four start since he claimed pole for race one at the Season 7 New York City E-Prix. As a result of his podium finish, Bird claimed his 750th Formula E point (and his 150th for Jaguar TCS Racing)

- In just their second E-Prix, NEOM McLaren claimed their first TAG Heuer Fastest Lap thanks to Rene Rast’s 1m10.117s and also led its first racing laps. This is the quickest a new team joining Formula E has picked up their first TAG Heuer Fastest Lap

- Rast scored his third Formula E podium and sealed NEOM McLaren's first

Rast Diriyah

- After two fifth-placed finishes in Diriyah, Rast's teammate Jake Hughes has now scored in each of his three Formula E starts

- Pascal Wehrlein became just the second driver to have won from ninth on the grid (after Mitch Evans won from the same position last season in Rome). On only three occasions has an E-Prix been won from a lower position (Mexico City Season 3, New York City Season 4 and Marrakesh Season 5)

- Both of Wehrlein’s first two wins in Formula E (Mexico City, Season 8 and Diriyah race one) were won by less than one second, making Wehrlein the first driver to claim both of their first two wins by under a second. However, this streak was broken on Race 2 when Wehrlein beat Jake Dennis by 1.252 seconds

- He became only the fifth driver to win both races of a double-header after Nico Prost (London, 2016), Sam Bird (New York City, 2017), Antonio Felix da Costa (Berlin, 2020, as part of the six-race nine-day season finale), Mitch Evans (Rome, 2022)

- Wehrlein has three top-two finishes in Season 9 - one more than he'd achieved in his whole Formula E career prior, which started in 2018/19 - Season 5

- With his back-to-back 2nd places in Diriyah, Jake Dennis has become just the fifth driver to have 11 consecutive top ten finishes. In that streak, Dennis has finished in every position in the top ten apart from fifth and ninth

- Such has been their dominance over the opening three rounds, that even if Wehrlein and Dennis failed to score in Hyderabad, they would still be one-two in the Drivers' World Championship 

1019472572-SUT-20230128-EPS903_182024MS1_0060 (2)

- With a total of 31 points scored across the Diriyah weekend, Envision Racing jump ahead of Techeetah as the second highest scoring team in Formula E. Envision are now just 41 points behind the record held by ABT

- Stoffel Vandoorne qualified in eighth place for race two in Diriyah (the sixth time in the last 17 races that Vandoorne has qualified in this position)

- Both Mitch Evans and Jake Hughes were born in 1994. This is the first time since the Season 8 Monaco E-Prix in which drivers born in the same year shared the front row

- Jake Hughes became just the sixth driver to reach the Duels Final in consecutive races (no driver has reached the Duels Final in three consecutive races)

- Sam Bird’s fastest lap in Round 3 was his eighth TAG Heuer Fastest Lap, which puts Bird only behind di Grassi in terms of total fastest laps. Bird’s last one also came in race two in Diriyah (back in Season 8)

Sam Bird Jaguar TCS Racing Diriyah

- Round 3 was the first E-Prix in which four British drivers scored in the same race since the second race of the Season 7 Berlin E-Prix. The Saturday race in Diriyah was also the 100th E-Prix in which British drivers have scored in

- Pascal Wehrlein becomes just the fifth driver to win both races of a Formula E double header and the first of those five to win when starting both races outside of the top four

- Both races in Diriyah were won from outside the top four on the grid, the first time that has happened in consecutive Formula E races in over four and a half years (Zurich and New York City, Season 4)

- For only the third time since the start of Season 5 has Sam Bird claimed back-to-back top four finishes in the same season. All three instances have come at Race 2 and Race 3 of the season (Seasons 5 and 7)

- With 36 points scored across the weekend, Jake Dennis becomes the second highest scoring British driver in Formula E (on 279 points), but is almost 500 points behind the highest scoring British driver of Sam Bird (on 770 points)

- For the first time since New York City in Season 7 has Stoffel Vandoorne (DS PENSKE) failed to score any points in a double header.

- Porsche have started of the season in a consistent fashion, scoring 24 points in Mexico City and 25 points in each of the races in Diriyah

- The Stuttgart firm's 99X Electric Gen3 has taken the top two steps of the podium in each round so far in Season 9

- Dan Ticktum scored his first point of the season with 10th in Round 3 - the first race in which he'd started outside the top eight having failed to make the Duels