JEDDAH: Antonio Felix da Costa delivered a flawless performance to give Jaguar TCS Racing their first win of the 2026 season in Round 5 of the Jeddah E-Prix on Saturday.
The Portuguese driver led home Sebastien Buemi, with reigning champion Oliver Rowland completing the podium.
Da Costa was the first of the lead group to activate both of his mandatory 50kW all-wheel-drive attack mode boosts, using the strategy to pull clear of his rivals.
He held on to win by 2.5 seconds — his first victory for Jaguar and his first since Portland in 2024.
The race lead changed frequently as drivers battled in an energy-critical contest.
Buemi moved into second using an attack mode overlap to edge Rowland, who had also led early on. Mahindra’s Edoardo Mortara, despite securing back-to-back pole positions, had to settle for fourth, adding strong points but leaving the team wishing for more.
Dan Ticktum narrowly beat teammate Pepe Marti to fifth, while Jaguar’s Mitch Evans finished seventh.
Round 4 winner Pascal Wehrlein of Porsche could only manage eighth, ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne in the Citroen and Taylor Barnard of DS Penske.
Race winner da Costa said the victory was especially satisfying given the challenges of adapting to life with Jaguar TCS Racing, describing the move as “a massive workload” with “a lot of things to learn and new faces and names.”
He said the result was a timely reward after several competitive outings that had not delivered the desired outcome.
“We’ve been having good pace but we haven’t been able to capitalise on it, so I’m happy to get this one done by Race 5,” he said.
He further explained that his decisive moment came when he was able to combine a small on-track gap with attack mode, noting that “only a big drama could really take this away from us.”
However, the closing stages were not without tension, as warning alarms flashed on his dashboard.
“I kept asking, ‘Do I need to manage something? Do I need to go slower?’” he said. “They told me to acknowledge the alarms and crack on. It was a little bit stressful, but it’s a great feeling when you know it’s only up to you to bring this one home.”
Buemi said his early decision to lead the race was driven by survival as much as strategy.
“If you fight for P3 or P4 it’s a jungle out there,” the Envision Racing driver said. “If you want to just survive you want to make sure you’re at the front.”
Buemi acknowledged that da Costa ultimately managed his energy more effectively, adding: “He was able to go flat out a bit longer than me and that’s why he made that gap.”
Reflecting on the result, he said finishing second was still a strong outcome after starting from the back of the grid the previous day.
Completing the podium, Rowland said overnight changes paid off after a difficult run of form.
“The last two races I struggled quite a lot, I just had no pace,” he said.
He praised his crew for working late into the night to turn things around, adding: “I just wanted to stay out of trouble.”
In the championship standings, Wehrlein leads Mortara by six points (68-62), with Rowland on 49. In the team table, Porsche is on 113 points to Jaguar’s 86, while in the Manufacturers’ World Championship, Porsche on 143 points lead Jaguar on 124.
