How FE's established stars eclipsed their famous new rivals

Formula E returned in typical fashion last weekend. The two races in Saudi Arabia neatly showcased how the on-track action tends to go in the electric championship: a tight, tactical affair with razor-sharp passing, and complete chaos with much controversy.

While the pre-season focus had largely been on FE newcomers Porsche and Mercedes - and they did have their shining moments at the Diriyah track with debut podiums - it was three of the championship's established stars that made the most notable openings to the new campaign.

Star one: Sam Bird

The driver generally considered to be the best FE performer without a title from the first five seasons made a massive early impression on the 2019-20 championship battle.

Bird was rapid from the off on Friday, taking third in FP1 and topping second practice. This was significant because it highlighted how well he was driving, as the approximately 80% resurfaced track caught out the unwary and was described as "like ice" and "even worse to drive than in the wet last year" by various competitors. The track work had been done to improve drainage after rain blighted the inaugural event, but it meant the drivers that adapted best to the low-grip and evolving surface would be rewarded.

In group qualifying, Bird was unstoppable - taking the season's first point with a smashing lap from group two. But he came unstuck in superpole, as a wild moment put him off-line at the long right-hand Turn 4 and he did well to just keep it out of the wall given the severe lack of grip on the sandy surface. A fifth-place start was the result.

But in the race, there was no stopping Bird. He used an aggressive attack mode strategy to make his way up the order - putting in incisive passes along the way. But what was really impressive was how he stayed with the rivals he caught even when they took the four-minute 35kW power boost (with two activations required, as ever).

The defining moment of the race occurred as Bird was running third and caught up to Stoffel Vandoorne on lap 23 of 34. Bird went to attack the Mercedes driver at the Turn 18 right-hander at the end of the main straight. But Vandoorne then launched his own move on long-time leader and polesitter Alexander Sims (BMW Andretti) that resulted in a slight touch and sent them both deep. Vandoorne shot ahead and took the lead, while Bird nipped past Sims for second.

After stalking Vandoorne with and without his second attack mode, Bird made the race-winning pass at Turn 18 - muscling by to take a lead he would not lose despite the late disruption of a crash involving Daniel Abt and Antonio Felix da Costa.

"The car felt fantastic," said Bird. "And we executed a good plan with the attack mode. We've done a lot of work this off-season - and this rewards that."

Bird was philosophical about the second race, but said unequivocally "we've proved that we are contenders"

The victory maintains Bird's streak of winning in every FE season so far, with this triumph coming five years to the day since he scored his first category victory - in Putrajaya.

"The one thing no-one knew was the respective efficiency of all the cars," said a beaming Virgin team boss Sylvain Filippi. "We were pretty confident because we were looking strong. And then in the race we were really mega on race-pace."

But the second race of the weekend brought Virgin, which had also taken fifth in race one with another battling drive from Robin Frijns from 12th on the grid, and Bird back down with a bump.

Bird was again on the pace in practice - just 0.022 seconds behind da Costa - and he managed a superb seventh from the much-maligned first qualifying group (even if the track surface was better with more rubber on day two). Without "too many mistakes in the final sector", though, he might have made superpole.

He looked to be in the fight during the early stages, before the misfortune that blighted his 2018-19 season struck again.

As Lucas di Grassi checked up at the exit of Turn 1 on lap 14 of 30 following a pass by da Costa, he was attacked around the outside by Bird, who then lost momentum and was in turn harassed by Jaguar's Mitch Evans. They collided as they ran through Turn 4 - with Evans later handed a drivethrough for the clash - and Bird "was a passenger, my car was already broken" even when he was hit from behind by Pascal Wehrlein as he edged through the next corner, which sent him into the wall and out.

Bird was philosophical about the second race in the aftermath, but unequivocal on one thing: "We've proved that we are contenders".

Star two: Alexander Sims

Sims had quite the rough ride in his rookie FE season in 2018-19. There was the intra-BMW implosion with da Costa at Marrakech, plus numerous clashes that cost him results, before it all turned around with pole and a podium in the final race. But the speed was clearly there, which convinced BMW to keep him on alongside new recruit Maximilian Guenther. And that speed brought him much glory last weekend.

Although Bird was the race one superpole favourite, Sims nailed his lap to take the first pole of the season - his car looking equally planted and nimble in the twisty early sectors in Diriyah. He led from the off and looked his usual calm self, but it quickly became apparent he was overconsuming energy compared to the chasing Vandoorne and Nyck de Vries (and then Bird) behind.

When the assault from Vandoorne forced him out of first, Sims felt "from my side, it was my fault for not blocking earlier fully". He came home eighth after another bold move from de Vries "that was hard but fair" pushed him further back.

Sims and BMW knew there was work to be done overnight. "We had a long chat about what we needed to do differently," explained team boss Roger Griffiths. "He slept on it and woke up in a really good frame of mind".

That resulted in another pole position. This one was more spectacular - particularly his wild slide out of the tricky Turn 17 that feeds onto the track's uphill main straight - and needed a slice of luck, da Costa losing it at that same turn after just pipping Sims's sector one benchmark. Nevertheless, a third consecutive FE pole was his.

"We seemed to get every decision right" Alexander Sims

From Sims's point of view, the second race was as calm as he was behind the wheel - unflappable despite chaos. After scampering clear from pole with no signs of further energy management concerns, he had to endure two safety-car periods and a full-course yellow.

After da Costa and Sebastien Buemi had the race's first flashpoint when the former span the Nissan e.dams driver around at the exit of Turn 18, the Bird/Evans/Wehrlein incident led to the first race suspension. Virgin's day got even worse when Frijns lost the rear of his car in sector one and slammed out, triggering another safety car. Then, when the race restarted, the tractor craning Frijns's car away got stuck as it reversed off the circuit, leaving the accompanying marshals exposed and forcing the FIA to thrown a sudden FCY.

But Sims was serene - even taking his first attack mode just as the first safety-car period ended, knowing the following da Costa couldn't overtake him as the activation zone was before the track's control line. Guenther, however, did make up ground here - clouting Vandoorne's car as he came by - and although he crossed the line behind Sims and ahead of Audi's Lucas di Grassi, who recovered from a subdued 13th place in race one with a "flipped" car set-up for day two, his maiden FE podium was inevitably taken away. Vandoorne therefore scored his second third place.

"A chunk of it was it was just in me - how I managed my energy in the first phase of the race," said Sims of his different energy usage after securing his first single-seater win since GP3's second race at Spa in 2013. "We seemed to get every decision right."

Dimmed star: Jean-Eric Vergne

DS Techeetah's reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne has dominated FE for the last two seasons. But he could not bring his authority to bear in Diriyah for a second year in a row.

He scored "the pole of my group" by topping group one for the first race - a lap that deserves much praise given the awful track conditions and the bunched-up nature of the runners - but was still only 11th following the positive track evolution delta for the later groups.

Vergne looked to be having a fairly anonymous first race, but it later became clear he was physically grappling a major issue. A steering rack problem manifested itself after five laps and, although Vergne hung on, eventually "it was becoming too heavy and it was very unsafe for me to drive so I took the decision to stop". His team worked until the early hours diagnosing and fixing the problem.

Race two had Vergne ruing a costly practice crash on Saturday morning.

He felt the incident was "nothing spectacular". It broke his left-rear suspension but while that was quickly fixed, the 32G impact triggered a medical check for the driver and a battery inspection.

Damage was detected and a change needed - so suddenly Vergne dropped from 11th on the race two grid (again impressive as he had had virtually no practice on the now-grippy surface) to last, with a 10-second stop/go penalty still to serve. "Unreal" and "extremely harsh" was his assessment.

In the race, he sensibly drove slowly to build an energy advantage in case of the safety car appearing, as it duly did. But Vergne could not rise up the order quite as dramatically as de Vries (23rd to eighth at the flag) or James Calado (21st to 12th), and he came home 13th.

But Vergne got his "miracle" points with eighth when Guenther and de Vries - plus race one runner-up Andre Lotterer - were penalised for various safety car overtaking infractions, Buemi was demoted for rejoining the action in an unsafe manner following his da Costa-induced spin and Oliver Turvey was disqualified from a brilliant race to the points for using too much energy.

Given he lost the 2018 Diriyah win to a technical penalty, the Saudi track is not a happy hunting ground for Vergne or his team. But, at least he could smile afterwards, joking: "To win the championship you [clearly] need to start with some really bad races".

The first races of FE's 2019-20 season are in the books, with Sims leading the standings. But had it not been for his race two crash, Bird would probably have stamped his authority on the weekend.

Nevertheless, it was a brilliant start for the two Britons and, with protests in Santiago creating some uncertainty about FE's second round going ahead, they could be at the top of the pile - with Vandoorne in between - for quite a while yet.