Mahindra did not need long to make Sanya feel less like a Jaguar-controlled Formula E weekend.
Edoardo Mortara topped opening practice for the 2026 Lianxin Sanya E-Prix on Friday, setting a 1m05.616s to put Mahindra at the head of the field as Formula E returned to the Chinese island venue for the first time in seven years.
The result does not decide anything on its own. FP1 rarely does in Formula E, particularly on a street circuit where grip, braking references and energy targets move quickly across the weekend. But as a first competitive signal, it was a sharp one: Mortara led, Jake Dennis split the Mahindra pair for Andretti, and Nyck de Vries completed a Mahindra one-three at the start of a weekend that had been framed heavily around Jaguar’s championship control.
Why Mortara’s lap matters beyond FP1
The timing of Mahindra’s pace is what gives it weight. Jaguar arrived in Sanya with Mitch Evans leading the drivers’ standings and Antonio Felix da Costa close enough to make the team’s title position feel powerful, as explored in ReadMotorsport’s earlier look at why Sanya begins Jaguar’s real Formula E title examination.
That examination now has a different opening paragraph. According to Formula E’s official FP1 report, Mortara was a tenth clear of Dennis, with de Vries third, Pascal Wehrlein fourth for Porsche and Norman Nato fifth for Nissan. That spread matters because it places pressure not just on Jaguar’s outright speed, but on its execution across qualifying and Attack Mode strategy.
Formula E weekends can turn brutally on track position. A leader who starts buried has to spend energy and risk to recover; a rival with clean air can make the race look simpler than it really is. That is why early pace from Mahindra and Porsche is not background noise. It is exactly the kind of complication Jaguar would rather not meet before the weekend has properly warmed up.
Sanya’s return leaves little room for comfort
Sanya adds an extra layer because the field does not have much recent race memory to lean on. Formula E’s own schedule note highlights that the series has not raced there since 2019, with Free Practice 2, qualifying and the race all still to come on Saturday. That puts a premium on teams that can learn quickly without overcorrecting.
The official report also underlined how fine the margins were in the opening session. Pepe Marti overshot Turn 12, Norman Nato and da Costa had similar moments at Turn 9, and Sebastien Buemi caused the first red flag of the weekend when his Envision stopped on track. None of that is especially dramatic in isolation. Taken together, it showed a venue that can punish hesitation and late braking just as much as outright lack of pace.
For Jaguar, the key will be keeping that under control. Evans has already built the kind of season that gives him authority in a title fight, and his wider form has been central to ReadMotorsport’s coverage of how Mitch Evans extended Formula E’s wins record. But a championship lead is only useful if it gives a driver options. Sanya’s first session hinted at a weekend where those options may have to be earned the hard way.
Jaguar’s warning is about the pack, not one lap
Mortara’s lap is the headline, but the broader warning is the number of serious threats already visible. Dennis has the racecraft to turn a front-row opportunity into a long afternoon for the field. Wehrlein’s Porsche in fourth keeps one of Jaguar’s main title reference points near the sharp end. De Vries backing up Mortara means Mahindra’s pace was not simply a one-car flash.
That is the real shift from preview to practice. Before the weekend, Sanya’s return naturally looked like a pressure test for a championship leader and a dominant team, a theme ReadMotorsport also framed when Formula E’s Sanya return gave half the grid a new kind of test. After FP1, it looks more like a live argument.
Jaguar still has the strongest championship hand. But Mahindra has made sure Sanya will not start as a procession. If qualifying follows the first practice pattern, Evans and da Costa may find that the first Chinese round of this decisive run is less about defending an advantage and more about proving they can absorb pressure from every side.
