It is sometimes fun and disconcerting at the same time to think of that stretch of London Docklands real estate within and outside of the ExCeL halls of having a kind of special carbon-crunching licence once a year, for an hour each day, over the course of a summer's weekend.

Mix in the fact that in three of the previous five visits to that unique venue there has been a close title fight to play out and perhaps it is inevitable that a carpet of debris has more often than not covered its expansive halls.

Oliver Rowland was complicit in that last season. But then again, he was already proverbially tooting on a champion's cigar and shining his silverware.

This year is different and there will be none of that. This year, the last races of the Gen3 era have all the hallmarks of living up to classic ExCeL fodder of marshals armed with dustpan and brushes as the chequered flag drops and of team principals scattering to stop their drivers saying or doing something they might regret.

Remember 2024? That was when Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy were left haunted by failed title pushes, as Pascal Wehrlein stole in, and when a tearful Antonio Felix da Costa embraced his friend Cassidy to apologise for his unintended front-wing-to-tyre execution. Walking the paddock that afternoon was like walking the set of Eastenders mid-shoot.

One driver who was dislocated from the drama that day was Rowland. as he signed off a stellar first season upon his return to Nissan, he picked the title fighters' pockets to score his second win of the campaign. Had it not been for an ear infection that caused him to miss the penultimate event in Portland a few weeks before, Rowland might've been coming into this year's London weekend on a hat-trick of titles.

"I remember in 2024, I didn't want to get in the way of the championship fight, let's say, and I think it'd be quite interesting to see how others play it this time around," Rowland tells The Race.

"Historically, Formula E races are super aggressive from anyone and everyone and you can’t expect good treatment from one person in certain circumstances.

"It'll be interesting if the competition wants to let us go at it and not be a hindrance in that. Certainly, that was my mentality in London back in 2024, and I think also racing against those guys they knew I wasn't in it, so why put up a fight against me?"

It's a salient point Rowland raises here because he, points leader Jake Dennis, Evans, and Wehrlein are in truth the title-chasing quartet everyone is focusing on.

Edoardo Mortara, da Costa, Cassidy, Nico Mueller and Nyck de Vries all have mathematical title chances that require outrageous misfortune for others and big scores for themselves. The quartet at the top feel like a genuine breakaway group now.

Title contenders going into London finale

1 Jake Dennis - 146
2 Mitch Evans - 144
3 Pascal Wehrlein - 141
4 Oliver Rowland - 132
5 Edoardo Mortara - 116
6 Antonio Felix da Costa - 113
7 Nick Cassidy - 104
8 Nico Mueller - 100
9 Nyck de Vries - 94

"I do think it'll be different [to 2024]," adds Rowland. "I don't expect an easy time off the three guys in front but a lot of it depends on qualifying and who's around each other."

There is one other key difference to 2024, too. The cars are now much more likely to be able to overtake cleanly under the 350kW attack mode (all-wheel drive) that they will get six minutes of, in conjunction with PitBoost stops, on Saturday, and then eight minutes of without a pitstop on Sunday.

"Most people are like, 'You cannot overtake there' and, 'It's a pretty fixed race' but I got quite, let's say, experimental in Turns 2/3/4 in 2024 and took quite a lot of positions during the race," reckons Rowland.

"But I think everybody has quite a lot of experience now to understand that and understand how to defend against that. I think the biggest difference compared to 2024 is that the all-wheel drive is quite a lot more powerful, and having the energy during it means you can overtake during the attack mode.

"There's two races and [they are] two very different races to look ahead to, and I think depending on where you qualify, they can have completely different outcomes."

Who's got the coolest head?

Wehrlein will be hoping for a very similar outcome to his 2024 ExCeL weekend. It was then that an excellent win on Saturday and following Rowland home while the Jaguars crumbled that he became champion, overturning a 12-point deficit coming into the weekend back then.

But two years on and Wehrlein, many people's pre-season favourite to become the 2025-26 world champion, has recently shown flashes of a previous incarnation of himself: the one that gets angry and makes mistakes.

Sanya and Tokyo accounted for three non-scores in five races, just at the time of the season when he should have been building on his once promising points lead. Last time out at Tokyo there was an irritable Wehrlein; does Rowland maybe think he might be susceptible in London too?

"The level that those guys are at, you might have a one-off weekend like that, but you quickly learn from it," he says.

"And I think, especially in his case [Wehrlein's], where he kind of probably threw away quite a lot of points over the course of the weekend, I fully expect that he won't allow the same to happen.

"What's quite tricky in Formula E is having that balance of being aggressive, but not overly aggressive. It's very easy to go over it and then lose your confidence, and then kind of be too under it and get beaten up a little bit.

"I've kind of had it to a small extent where I feel like everybody's gone more like I was the year before, and then I'm kind of trying to consolidate a bit. And actually, sometimes you just get pushed backwards like that.

"So, I think it'll just be interesting to see how, if what happened in Japan affects him, possibly on the opposite spectrum."

The fact is that all four of the championship protagonists have the capability to blow their lids clean off. Dennis, Wehrlein, Rowland and Evans have issued rants and volleys of ire that would fuse-out former football manager Alex Ferguson's hairdryer in an instant.

Staying cool and focused will again be a constituent part of who will take the crown this weekend and, in all bar Evans's case, become only Formula E's second double title winner.