Formula E's title fight appeared to have settled into a recognisable narrative - before this past weekend's penultimate round in Tokyo turned everything upside down.

As controversy reigned supreme in the Saturday race and tyre pressures and rain strategies dominated Sunday's, the driver in fifth coming into Tokyo left it as the championship leader - while the series' top squads, the Jaguar and Porsche works teams, face-planted.

Here are our winners and losers from the second-to-last Gen3 weekend ever, and definitely one of its wildest.

Winner: Jake Dennis (2nd & 3rd)

Dennis was a big winner in Tokyo, without actually being one, although he was within an ace of doing a famous double. So, in some irony, part of him would have felt like a loser at the end of one of his and Andretti's strongest weekends.

Hooked up from the very first laps in free practice, Dennis found a strong rhythm whatever the track conditions, and he claimed his third pole position of the season.

The race was mostly controlled by Dennis - who looked nailed on for a ninth Formula E win until a power cut halfway around the final lap allowed a grateful Dan Ticktum, who had already given notice of his intent to settle for second place via a radio message, to steal in.

Had Dennis lifted 20 metres earlier over a corner in the last few laps of Saturday's race, he would have had a relative cruise to the chequered flag in a race that he seemed to have in complete control.

"We ran it mega close and we just went too close," was Andretti team principal Roger Griffiths's appraisal of the situation.

A day later Dennis again looked certain to win, until a crueller twist of fate turned his and Andretti's plans for a third win of the season inside out.

A poor qualifying session left him 17th on the grid but Dennis and his side of the Andretti garage had done their homework in Friday's first, slightly damp practice session, which was held at a similar time of the evening as the race start.

That, combined with an energy-saving first half of the race, allowed Dennis to build up at one stage a 5% energy advantage over the leading 'wet pressure' group. Using his attack modes shrewdly, Dennis asserted himself in the top three after quickly dispatching Oliver Rowland and Jean-Eric Vergne. Then came Edoardo Mortara's tipping of Joel Eriksson into the barriers and an instant red flag. Dreams dashed.

"Had we had one more lap, I think we'd have been good," reckoned Griffiths, who still had reason to rationalise the weekend as a whole.

"If you'd have asked me coming into this weekend, would we be leading the drivers' championship [by two points from Mitch Evans] when you came away, I would have said, 'I'd love to say that, but I doubt it'."

Loser: Porsche

Pascal Wehrlein (DNF & 13th); Nico Mueller (18th & 7th)

How does a factory that secured a world championship with two races remaining end up being a net loser?

It seems ridiculous to come to that judgement but Porsche left Tokyo with just six points gathered in the teams' title race - and the manufacturers' coronation only happened because Jaguar was equally as profligate.

Porsche had seemed to put to bed a poor run of form in Monaco and Sanya with a win and a very healthy points accrual in Shanghai earlier this month. But a fractious, incident-filled, set-up-error-affected pair of races in Tokyo means it is making heavy work of the drivers' and teams' title challenges as the season finale approaches.

It said a lot that Wehrlein appeared to go from clear favourite after Shanghai, where he reclaimed the points lead from Evans, down to third place in the twinkling of an eye in Japan.

A clash with persistent nemesis Antonio Felix da Costa on Saturday and then a depressing fall down the order due to mostly dry settings on Sunday underlined a difficult weekend for Wehrlein.

His team-mate Mueller fared little better with a tub-wrecking shunt in Saturday's qualifying semi-final duel, then damage on the first lap of the race via Da Costa's Jaguar.

Sunday could have brought a podium as Mueller was the only driver to pit for a new set of tyres under full course yellow, which at the time appeared to be a masterstroke.

But a botched pitstop, in which the right rear tyre was not prepared for being applied, cost him 12 seconds and a likely charge to the front of the field.

The fact that he and Wehrlein were on wet settings ultimately came down to a decision on the grid after a light rain shower spooked some teams, including Porsche, into going for the wet-condition tyre pressures.

Porsche Formula E chief Florian Modlinger struggled to hide his disappointment on Sunday evening, especially in light of Mueller's spoiled strategic plan.

"We saw the first opportunity with the full course yellow and were the only car directly there making the call and using the opportunity," Modlinger told The Race.

"A pity, really a pity, but we win and lose as a team. We lost 12 seconds in the pitstop due to a procedural issue you can see on TV and without these 12 seconds Nico Mueller would be completely in the game for a win or for a podium and this would have been mega."

Loser: Jaguar

Mitch Evans (4th & DNF); Antonio Felix da Costa (9th & 14th)

Jaguar's hoodoo in Tokyo continued - with only Evans's excellent run from 16th to fourth place on Saturday bringing any joy to an otherwise lacklustre weekend.

Having said that, at least Jaguar had genuine pace at the sinuous and bumpy Big Sight track this year, something it had failed to show on its three previous outings.

Da Costa claimed just two points after his challenge for a crack at the win on Saturday was derailed by Wehrlein. He recovered to a very angry ninth place, with his ire initially directed at Envision - and, inevitably, Wehrlein.

On Sunday, da Costa, who qualified an excellent second, got cut adrift in the second phase of the race as the track dried, as his wet-settings car spiralled swiftly down the order, as did that of team-mate Evans.

Da Costa came in last on the road, while Evans retired on the final lap when his rear suspension broke after a kerb strike and he elected to park it rather than inflict more damage upon the driveshaft and gearbox.

The overriding question after the race was why Jaguar had not used the full course yellow period to switch at least one of its cars to a set of dry-pressured Hankooks.

"Hindsight, it's a wonderful thing," said team principal Ian James. "We would definitely [have changed] would we have known what we know now. It is what is."

"The initial call to have both cars on essentially the same wet settings was made due to the [weather] information that we had," added James.

"I have zero criticism for the team or for the decisions that were taken and we took them collectively. There's always a lot of discussion in these situations; you look like a hero when you get it right and an idiot when you get it wrong."

Whatever sheen James tried to put on the Tokyo weekend, there was no hiding the fact that Jaguar missed a major opportunity to head to London in three weeks' time in much more better shape in the title fights.

Fourteen points from three races at the business end of the season is a worrying haul.

Winner: Mahindra

Edoardo Mortara (5th & DNF); Nyck de Vries (17th & 1st)

After a very average Shanghai, Mahindra was back in the thick of the action with a pole position and a win, the first time since London in 2021 that it has achieved such a feat over a Formula E double-header weekend, courtesy of Alex Lynn back then.

Here, Mortara looked again to be the fastest driver over one lap, with a second place and pole position in the two qualifying sessions. But, as has happened too often this season, he came unstuck in the races - particularly on Sunday when he needlessly shunted Eriksson out of contention, triggering the red flag and earning himself a five-place grid drop for next month's London E-Prix.

It seems remarkable that while Mortara still has a win drought in Formula E stretching back almost four years, to Seoul in August 2022, Mahindra's two wins have come from De Vries - who has largely been in Mortara's shadow this season.

But the 2021 champion pulled off a sublime win on Sunday after a classic energy-saving strategy and clever late attack mode plan paid off handsomely.

"Nyck was very wise in the way he used his attack modes because he has been able each time to really get advantage of them," said team principal Frederic Bertrand.

"I think all together Nyck has now developed a very good understanding of the racing. That's what we were missing probably last season, beginning of the season people were saying, 'Ahh, but it was mostly our fault because we never gave him a good car' but now he's fully in and once he switches properly on, he's a very good student, he's delivering exactly to the plan."

A difficult start from De Vries yielded just 14 points from the first eight races. Seven races later he's on 94. Come London, a circuit where he took a brace of second places last July, De Vries could easily finish in the top six this season.

Winner: Dan Ticktum (1st & 12th)

A second E-Prix win was just a small part of Ticktum's Tokyo story last weekend, and for once any eccentric antics on or off the track were not even close to surfacing.

Well, there was the obligatory message for 'the haters' on Instagram but he could be allowed that because on Saturday he had been the model of a calm, collected winner.

While his maiden win at Jakarta last June was a breakthrough for the then-new Cupra Kiro squad, this one felt much more grown-up, in the sense that it was built upon a great strategy - with Ticktum nailing his attack mode laps as he painted the timing screens purple.

That essentially got him the undercut on his direct opposition and when the chance to pounce came with Dennis's last-lap drama, Ticktum gratefully accepted.

Ticktum's career, which has seen more flashpoints than a lighthouse, is currently in the balance as his seat at Kiro is believed to be up for grabs next season. Could a win and a strong end to the current campaign, one in which any histrionics or flip-outs are quashed, save his seat?

It feels like it may be too far gone already - and it may not be in Ticktum's hands.

Alternatives are being looked at on his side, but are they realistic? We'll find out in the next months or so as one of racing's rough diamonds gets ready to be either cut or polished.

Loser: Felipe Drugovich (13th & 16th)

Drugovich had built up some impressive momentum in the last four events with a podium, a pole and six consecutive points scores.

But upon his first visit to Tokyo Big Sight, Drugovich left with nothing other than a destroyed car and never really showed any sign of continuing his excellent form.

The double-impact shunt at Turn 16 in FP2 on Saturday morning triggered a Herculean effort by the Andretti team to turn around a new survival cell, which was made all the more remarkable by the fact it was denied the official Porsche spare that was dressed with wiring looms and other key ancillary parts. Instead, it turned to one of the 'pool' spare tubs supplied by official parts provider Spark Racing Technologies, which was just a bare monocoque.

Any notion of a fairytale fightback result from there simply never looked on, as Drugovich's confidence appeared to take a dive around the tight confines of the track.

A slightly concerned Griffiths admitted that Drugovich "struggled a little bit" in Tokyo.

That may have been due to Andretti being forced, by the shunt, to change back to a powertrain previously used earlier in the season, when Drugovich struggled.

"We sort of found ourselves a little bit back where we started," reckoned Griffiths.

"So, we need to look into that going into London and make some decisions and decide how we want to approach London for him.

"For me, it's really important - as we want him to contribute, because the reason that we're in third place in the championship is because he was able to get really solid points on the board for us and take the fight to the Mahindra team.

"But also, I don't want him to finish the season on a downer. I want him to finish it on a high because that means, when he goes into Gen4, he's fired up and ready to go."

Compounding a poor weekend, Drugovich's initial 10th-place finish in Sunday's race was snatched away when he was given a post-race five-second penalty for a full course yellow speeding infraction.

Winner: Citroen

Nick Cassidy (3rd & 2nd); Jean-Eric Vergne (6th & 5th)

A second and a third place for Nick Cassidy and a fifth and a sixth for Vergne ensured that Citroen had by far its best collective weekend since it entered the all-electric world championship at the end of 2025.

While that was a nice milestone, it meant so much more because of the tragic backdrop to the event, with the announcement of the passing of its team principal, Cyril Blais, a week before the weekend began.

Emotions naturally ran high as Blais' memory was honoured. It was an immensely difficult and distressing time for Citroen and, while the paddock rallied around it, team members conducted themselves with a professionalism and grace that was humbling just to witness in extraordinarily difficult and emotionally demanding circumstances.

Every member of the team should be proud of what they accomplished in the memory of their former colleague, who would have been justifiably delighted and proud for what they achieved.

"It means a huge, huge amount," Cassidy told The Race. "Honestly, it's been a really tough few months, not even the last couple of weeks. And so, it was really needed in many ways."

Loser: Taylor Barnard (10th & 8th)

Barnard has been as quick as ever this season and, despite a few fraught races in which he has been unnecessarily brutal in battle, his performances have been top-drawer.

Tokyo was no exception - but a familiar pattern was followed via a bitter combination of technical frailty, poor efficiency compared to others, and a slice of genuine bad luck.

The technical issue came on Saturday when both he and team-mate Maximilian Guenther were hamstrung by a systems issue and had to drive blind on energy targets, which rooted Barnard to a single point for 10th.

A day later there was another strong qualifying performance. He lined up fourth, one place better off than on Saturday, and was the quickest of the drivers in the wettest element of the race, where he took the lead briefly.

But as the track dried, like so many others he watched helplessly as his pace dropped away.

As a result, through zero fault of his own, Barnard has to be considered a loser because he was actually tantalisingly close to winning the race on Sunday.

DS Penske prepared for Barnard to pit, as Mueller, under the FCY, but it was officially deployed just as Barnard went past the pitlane.

"We missed doing it by just under 10 seconds," a rueful Phil Charles, DS Penske deputy team principal, told The Race.

"We calculated we'd have won the race if we'd have done that. We just can't get a break."

Winner: The title fight

The Race previewed the weekend's action by assuming that the title fight would be a three-way bare-knuckle contest between Evans, Wehrlein, and da Costa, with Dennis as a possible interloper.

While some of that still rings true, it is remarkably Dennis who will head to his home race with a slender two-point lead over Evans, while Wehrlein and Rowland place third and fourth, still very much in contention.

Mortara, da Costa and Cassidy are rank outsiders now, while Mueller and De Vries have only mathematical chances that need ludicrously freakish scenarios to play out.

What all that means is that Formula E will say farewell to the Gen3 era with a true epic of a finale at the ExCeL. (Which itself will pass the British electric racing baton on to Brands Hatch next season.)

For the neutrals this is a dream scenario, one in which each driver has a milestone to aim for: Dennis is going for a second title in four seasons; Evans is aiming for his long-awaited first title in his last outings with Jaguar; Wehrlein aims to reprise his 2024 heroics for a second championship; Rowland aims to be the first back-to-back champion since Vergne in 2019.

Whichever way you look there is a great tale to be told, and as ever Formula E will tell it with inevitable chaos and controversy.