Any race in which the entire championship top four score zero points having had completely separate disasters is going to have quite a few heroes and villains to tally up.

Here’s our winners and losers from a Sanya Formula E race littered with penalties, interrupted by a red flag, and which was a total wipeout for the four drivers we thought would be the main title contenders.

Additional reporting by Stewart Bell

Winner: Andretti (1st & 4th)

It was all too briefly a very satisfying first ever FE 1-2 for Andretti in Sanya. 

But a post-race penalty for Felipe Drugovich dropped him from second to fourth and added a twist of sour to what was otherwise a very sweet day. 

It shouldn't take away from one of the team's best ever across the board performances, one in which it more or less nailed both one lap and race pace. 

Jake Dennis seemed at one with his car from an early stage and reprised his Jakarta heroics from last season, when he destroyed the field to grab pole. He took his second top spot of this season, after Sao Paulo, and just like at the season opener he followed that up with a conclusive win.

It was built on the pillars of a sturdy and cute strategy. The plan was clearly to control the pace between the two of them from the start and foster decent energy targets, so they could be hit accurately and out of the park. This they did. 

"Felipe was doing a massively good job for Jake," Andretti team principal Roger Griffiths told The Race. 

He certainly did, with the two working together efficiently, something that Dennis has not been used to over the last few seasons simply because he's usually been in a totally different race to his team-mates. This time Drugovich was the consummate partner and fulfilled his race as brilliantly as Dennis'. The Brazilian's understanding of Formula E racing clicked a few races ago. Now you get the feeling he's very ready to win one.

The Turn 9 contact with Pascal Wehrlein for which he was penalised - which occurred away from the prying TV cameras - was said to be slight and not particularly gnarly. It lost the team six points but didn't take all the shine off a superbly executed race.

"All in all, a pretty decent weekend for us," added Griffiths. "It moves up to fourth in the [teams] championship overall, and Jake's back in the title fight as well."

Losers: All the pre-race title contenders

The top four in the championship standings heading into Sanya all had absolute nightmares, and for very varying reasons.

While all four of Mitch Evans, Edoardo Mortara, Pascal Wehrlein and Oliver Rowland failed to score points and ended their races either in the barriers or with damaged cars and penalties, Antonio Felix da Costa and Dennis rekindled at least some hope of catching the gang of four with six races remaining.

Reigning champion Rowland was brutally honest after his overzealous attempt to line a move up on the already penalised Wehrlein sent him straight into the Turn 4 Tecpro.

"I needed to keep my cool. And I didn't," Rowland told The Race.

He was right to own the error, which appeared to be born of some frustration after a miscommunication with his Nissan team on what energy he had left during the red flag period.

That was then reflected in some very aggressive moves on the restart, which in the context of a Formula E street race is normal. But in the framework of a title fight, in which he and his team knew that Evans, Mortara and Wehrlein were all out of points contention, it looked far from wise.

Evans's very strong qualifying (third) and early race were annulled by the Jaguar driver innocently becoming a kind of Judy for others to Punch. Dan Ticktum was first in line with the proverbial frying pan, before Zane Maloney and Sebastien Buemi took more chunks out in the red flag inducing slow-speed snarl-up.

Despite the best efforts of the team to patch his Jaguar up before he rejoined from the pitlane, Evans was unable to run at any decent pace, was then lapped and ended the race a lap down. He rightly oozed frustration at the end.

Wehrlein looked, at certain stages of the race, to be in the box seat to take his second victory of the season. Some sensational initial moves for track position thrust him forward into the lead from seventh on the grid amid a very impressive display of overtaking.

The Porsche driver was then one of only a few drivers to opt for an initial two minute attack strategy but was ultimately compromised by the red flag scenario.

Upon the restart Wehrlein's prospects of points of any description fell apart when he attempted an ambitious and ultimately clumsy move on Norman Nato at the exit of Turn 3. It cost him a five-second penalty and a slim chance of making the points.

"Until the red flag, we looked super strong and very good and did the right moves on attack mode timing and so on," Wehrlein told The Race.

"When I tried to pass Nato, he lifted super early, so I committed to a move and he went back on the throttle. As soon as I saw that, I was hitting the brakes, but he just turned in and we touched each other. That was my perspective, and that penalty put us out of the points."

It was a perspective few others agreed with, including a hacked-off Nato, who told The Race that "it was just a bit optimistic" and "it was very unfortunate, because again we're going for a good race. That's a little bit the story of my season I would say."

Mortara looked a likely pacesetter throughout the practice period but he struggled in qualifying and missed the duels, anchoring him to a mid-grid start amid the carbon flying zone in 11th.

That jeopardy became reality, when Mortara severely deranged his front wing assembly prior to taking his first four minutes of attack mode. Still, he fought his way through to the front just before the red flag but then retired shortly after the restart when the fire extinguisher and car kill switch loop was unluckily caught by debris and the car was shut down by accident.

Winner: Pepe Marti (2nd)

Pepe Marti's second podium, which was promoted from third to second after a post-race penalty for Drugovich, was made all the more remarkable by the fact that at one stage he sat stationary behind Evans' broken Jaguar amid a trail of his own and others' carbon fibre.

Less than half an hour later he was pulling into parc ferme with only the Andrettis ahead of him, one of which (Drugovich) would soon be hauled back to fourth place.

How Marti got there was a mix of luck and epic heroism by himself and his Cupra Kiro team. Luck because his car was not severely damaged after team-mate Ticktum rear-ended him in the red flag traffic jam at Turn 9 and also the slower than expected pace of the overall race dictated from the front allowed Marti and Kiro to amplify their supersaver energy strategy.

The epic heroism came in the form of some herculean work by the Kiro mechanics as they got Marti's car refreshed. After the restarted race he used his final four minutes of attack mode, which was varnished by the two extra laps added to the race, and he came through from 12th position to an eventual second once Drugovich's penalty was applied.

"It was just another very good example of Pepe and the team delivering quite a calm pre-planned race," team principal Russell O'Hagan told The Race.

"Obviously, there were some dynamic events with the red flag and things, but we kind of were able to stick to a run plan, a race plan, and deliver on it well."

Considering that Marti started from a Monaco penalty inspired 18th and had damage at the front and rear of the car after the pile-up, a second podium in three races and a seventh points score from 11 is way beyond any expectations from all quarters of the Formula E paddock. 

Winner – Lola (10th & 11th)

There were a lot of positives and negatives for Lola Yamaha Abt at Sanya, a venue where it explored pretty much every trough and peak possible in Formula E.

Even heading into it the team had supplementary carnage to deal with in the shape of a grid penalty for Lucas di Grassi changing inverters and gearbox in Monaco last month. That meant a 10-second stop and go penalty on lap one, which made his brief appearance in fourth position in the final stages all the more remarkable.

This was of course aided by the red flag period and restart where he was able to take advantage of an early race energy supersaver strategy. He got a bit swallowed at the end but a tenacious drive by the soon to be retired Brazilian brought home a valuable point for the team, making it the first time it has scored points in three consecutive races.

Because of di Grassi's penalty the team was essentially split into two with Zane Maloney tasked to excavate more one lap performance, while di Grassi majored on race pace and the energy save strategy.

Maloney showed well on 300kW pace but clipped the wall in qualifying, not only ruining his chances of a potential decent grid position, but also ensuring he will take a penalty for Shanghai next time after his team replaced the gearbox because of the damage.

In the race he was the first to take the attack mode and ascended from 14th to third before getting shuffled back. Some contact in the final stages meant he finished just behind team-mate di Grassi in 11th.

Acting team boss Frederic Espinos told The Race that the team "clearly made progress, so we can be positive for Shanghai, and we just need to put everything together. We can be higher in the points, so this is what we need now from". 

Winner – DS Penske (6th & 9th)

It's been a poor season for DS Penske and it's almost been an ever-present in the Losers sections of these features. But in Sanya, while it wasn't particularly quick, for once the strategic elements went its way.

Taylor Barnard was hugely unfortunate to lose the majority of his attack mode to Nato's Nissan salvage operation under full course yellow conditions. Had it not been for that Barnard would likely have been ahead of team-mate Maximilian Guenther, who pulled off a similarly smart energy banking drive to fifth place. Instead, Barnard took two points for ninth position in a race that, unlike his previous races, was not punctuated by contacts.

Guenther scored his best result since his Shanghai win almost a year ago. But like Barnard it was far from smooth as he lost places at the restart after a systems issue on the launch off the grid. 

Loser – Dan Ticktum (15th)

Another strong turn of pace in qualifying resulted in a fourth place start for Ticktum, who then ran solidly in the opening bunch of cars until he blotted his copybook by smashing into Evans' Jaguar at Turn 9, the same corner where his challenge for a potential crack at pole ended a few hours before when he skated down the escape road.

Had it not been for that bit of brain fade, Ticktum would have scored a podium and may have split the Andrettis because he was reasonably comfortable in pace and energy figures.

The resulting penalty and damage to his car, which was fixed to a degree when the race was red flagged, heaped more woe on a driver who needs a boring solid run to a fourth or fifth place more than any other driver at present.

But Ticktum has rarely experienced that in 2026 and Sanya was another example, although this time the majority of the fault lay with the driver and no one else.

His team boss O'Hagan, with whom he had a frank but seemingly constructive mid-season review meeting late last month that resulted in some disciplinary action, said "it was very difficult for Dan. Obviously, a lot of points could have been possible. But I think it'll just make the result when it does come super sweet, and it will do.

"Dan's had a really strong weekend again and there's lots of good things to come from that side. So, I'm looking forward to Shanghai to put that one right."

Ticktum, who will also serve a five-place grid drop at Shanghai for speeding under red flag conditions, has now scored 30 less points than his team-mate Marti so far this season. And while he has proved to be much the quicker prospect race in and race out, it is the Spanish rookie who is bringing home the pancetta. 

Loser – Nissan (2x DNF)

Zero points, two broken cars and a drop from fourth to fifth behind its future customer Andretti in the teams' standings was a very poor day at the office for Nissan in Sanya.

Rowland threw away a decent chance to chip away at title rival Evans' points lead, while Nato was the innocent victim of an over-wrought attempt on his fourth position by Wehrlein.

Prior to that drama Nissan had actually put behind it a difficult qualifying period, in which Nato's tyre prep was compromised by poor track positioning and he was 16th, and Rowland could only manage a pretty average lap for 10th.

The race was brewing up nicely for both drivers, with team director Dorian Boisdron explaining to The Race that "we saw during FP2 that we did not have the pace today and that the drivers had difficulties to be fast.

"We need to understand why, but clearly lacking, lacking pace, the difficulties to push, difficulties to find the grip. In all fairness, we were anticipating that it could be very difficult."

Ultimately the race was ended by a mistake by Rowland and Nato being taken out by Wehrlein. Some damage was limited by others' travails so Rowland's back-to-back title race quest has not some unstuck. 

So, in a way it is probably Nato's bad luck at being on the rough end of Wehrlein's move that may initially hurt the team the most because without it Nato could easily have finished the race second after the penalties were applied.