Over seven years on from its first and so far only visit to the Chinese island of Hainan, and the glittery and growing holiday resort destination of Sanya, Formula E is continuing to lay down roots in Asia.

Sanya finally makes its second appearance on the Formula E schedule on Saturday, and is expected to stay on the calendar for several more seasons amid huge investment in the area - which local agencies want to build up as the largest free-trade port in the world, a status it is aiming to achieve by 2035.

The 2019 event was supposed to be the first of several Sanya FE races.

However, the COVID pandemic of 2020 put paid to those plans and a deal for a return to the island was only completed in early 2025.

It is clear that there is a strong financial imperative for Formula E to be in Sanya, but perhaps equal to that is capturing a holy grail of a Chinese manufacturer to come into the championship.

As per recent events at Shanghai, several manufacturers are invited to attend the upcoming Asian leg which spans five weeks via Sanya, Shanghai and Tokyo. The first two events will feature a swathe of manufacturers taking a look at Formula E.

But when China's best known and biggest one - BYD - appears to be limbering up for a future Formula 1 project, which manufacturer, if any, will Formula E land?

"I talk to the Chinese manufacturers, and they're very determined that if they come into the championship, they want to be competitive straight away and be posting victories straight away because there's such a dominant force in EV manufacturing," reckoned Formula E CEO, Jeff Dodds, talking at an event preview media roundtable this week.

"They want to be able to translate that from the road straight onto the racetrack. And for those of us that have been around racing for a while, we do know sometimes it takes a while before you see success on the track as you have to build your capability and build your understanding."

So, the conversations are currently happening, and Dodds is "very optimistic that we'll see a Chinese manufacturer in the championship in the near term".

But he's also realistic, adding "the next logical point to enter the championship is from the midpoint of Gen4. So, if we assume there'll be some form of Gen4 Evo, that would be the next logical point for a manufacturer to enter on a full manufacturer basis, not just as a team partner."

The Sanya track

The series is heading to a refresher of the Sanya track that staged the March 2019 race, won by Jean-Eric Vergne's DS Techeetah. It is broadly the same layout but with subtly modified elements.

The circuit will be 2.48km (1.54 miles) in length, as opposed to the 2.23km track used in the first season of Gen2 in 2019.

It will run to 37 laps, rather than the 36 laps (60 minutes + 1 lap) of the inaugural event. The race on Saturday will also be one of the few races in history that will include a so-called ‘zero lap' whereby an off-set from the dummy grid – to be located at Turn 4/Turn 5 – to the start and finish line, which is in the same place as the 2019 race, means a different pre-start format.

Drivers will be required to travel at 50km/h on the ‘zero lap' before the standing start which will take place on the grid between Turns 10 and Turns 11. The offset distance from the starting grid to the finish line is 535 metres, similar to that of 2019.

The main changes to the circuit consist of a different configuration of the first three corners, all left handers. The 2026 version features a much more open Turn 1 followed by a double apex left which now makes the old Turn 2 a pair of left hand corners, with the second one of these opening out on to the short straight to Turn 4 (the old Turn 3).

The other significant changes come at the old Turn 10 area. This was previously a medium speed right-hander but has now seemingly got more flow to it, likely making it much faster.

The final left at the end of the lap (then Turn 11, now Turn 12) has what looks like a cleaner and more flowing 90-degree corner that appears to do away with the jutting out exit barrier on the outside of the corner.

The race will run to the regular 38.5kWh of usable energy allowance with the 0.93 regen coefficient. But it is the tyres, ambient and track temperatures and the threat of rain that teams are keeping an eye on.

The nature of the track will allow for natural energy saving tactics to play out but overtaking will be at a premium, prioritising track position, irrespective of the two attack mode power boosts driver will get.

Cupra Kiro racing manager, Gary Paffett, reckons that "Turn 9 will be the corner to watch".

"We saw plenty of action there when Formula E first raced in Sanya, and I'd be surprised if the drivers were any more polite this time around," he added. "With eight left-hand corners, the right-hand tyres are going to have a very busy weekend. Throw in the heat and the humidity we're anticipating, and tyre management could become a much bigger factor than drivers expect. If drivers push too hard too early, they'll pay for it."

What happened in 2019?

The first Sanya E-Prix was held just two weeks after the last ever Hong Kong E-Prix in what was then Formula E's Asian leg in the spring of 2019.

The practice period featured drama for Sebastien Buemi as he crashed his Nissan bizarrely at Turn 1. This was the start of a controversial story in which Nissan's then-innovative dual-motor system was exposed and eventually outlawed by the FIA. It is believed that this accident was a legacy of the system and prompted the FIA to investigate elements of the design further.

Oliver Rowland took a surprise pole position in the other Nissan from Vergne's DS Techeetah, Antonio Felix da Costa's BMW and Daniel Abt's Audi.

Vergne put what was ultimately a race-winning move on Rowland at the final corner with 20 minutes to run.

Vergne's team-mate Andre Lotterer fed Andretti BMW's Alexander Sims into the wall, bringing out a red flag. At the restart Vergne was placed under investigation for a safety car infraction which eventually came to nothing, while Robin Frijns was tipped into Lucas di Grassi by an errant Buemi, with the former two forced out while Buemi got a 10-second time penalty dropping him from sixth to eighth place.

That incident ensured the race ended under safety car with Vergne claiming his first win of the season and thrusting him to third place in the standings behind da Costa and Mahindra's Jerome d'Ambrosio.

Vergne would go on to win in Monaco and Bern and seal a second title, becoming the only driver in Formula E history to win back-to-back championships.

Meanwhile at Jaguar, a woeful performance by inaugural season Nelson Piquet Jr, in which he qualified last and then crashed on his own in the race, resulted in his exit from Formula E.

Piquet is believed to have been told it would be his final race ahead of the event itself. He was replaced for the next race in Rome by Alex Lynn.