Formula E’s season-on-season stats compared, heading to Long Beach

After a three-week break since its most recent round in Mexico City, the FIA Formula E Championship reconvenes this weekend on the streets of Long Beach for its sixth round of the season.

As was the case last year, Long Beach marks the sixth race of the season. Unlike last year, it marks the only trip to the U.S. for the series. Last year, Formula E had a twin-bill at Miami and Long Beach.

Here’s a quick look at where things sat this time last year from a results and points standpoint, versus this year:

• 2015 through 5 races: 5 winners (di Grassi, Bird, Buemi, da Costa, Prost), 8 different podium finishers (those 5 plus Montagny, Speed, Abt), 4 pole winners (Prost, Servia, Vergne, Buemi), 5 different drivers set fast lap (Sato, Alguersuari, Abt, Bird, Piquet)
• 2016 through 5 races: 4 winners (Buemi, di Grassi, Bird, d’Ambrosio), 7 different podium finishers (those 4 plus Heidfeld, Frijns, Prost), 3 pole winners (Buemi, d’Ambrosio, Bird), 3 different drivers set fast lap (Buemi, d’Ambrosio, Prost)

As you see, in a year with changes to the powertrains, certain teams have locked in better than others - the e.Dams Renault team has been the pace setter this year.

Here’s a year-on-year points comparison, five races in:

#	Driver	Nat.	Team	‘16	Pos.	‘15	Pos.
9	Sebastien Buemi	SUI	e.dams Renault	98	1	43	5
11	Lucas di Grassi	BRZ	ABT Schaeffler Audi	76	2	60	2
2	Sam Bird	GB	DS Virgin Racing	60	3	52	3
7	Jerome d’Ambrosio	BEL	Dragon Racing	58	4	34	7
6	Loic Duval	FRA	Dragon Racing	44	5	6	18
8	Nicolas Prost	FRA	e.dams Renault	38	6	67	1
27	Robin Frijns	NED	Amlin Andretti	31	7	-	-
4	Stephane Sarrazin	FRA	Venturi	30	8	3	20
23	Nick Heidfeld	GER	Mahindra Racing	27	9	5	19
66	Daniel Abt	GER	ABT Schaeffler Audi	16	10	19	9
55	Antonio Felix da Costa	POR	Team Aguri	16	11	37	6
21	Bruno Senna	BRZ	Mahindra Racing	12	12	18	13
88	Oliver Turvey	GB	NEXTEV TCR	10	13	-	-
25	Jean-Eric Vergne	FRA	DS Virgin Racing	6	14	14	15
1	Nelson Piquet Jr.	BRZ	NEXTEV TCR	4	15	49	4
77	Nathaniel Berthon	GB	Team Aguri	4	16	-	-
77	Salvador Duran	MEX	Team Aguri	0	19	1	22
3	Jaime Alguersuari	SPN	Virgin	-	-	26	8
27	Franck Montagny	FRA	Andretti Autosport	-	-	18	10
28	Scott Speed	USA	Andretti Autosport	-	-	18	11
5	Karun Chandhok	IND	Mahindra Racing	-	-	18	12
6	Oriol Servia	SPN	Dragon Racing	-	-	16	14
10	Jarno Trulli	ITA	Trulli GP	-	-	12	16
28	Charles Pic	FRA	Andretti Autosport	-	-	12	17
55	Takuma Sato	JPN	Amlin Aguri	-	-	2	21

As you can see, the year-on-year pacesetters - Buemi, di Grassi and Bird - have been in top-five positions each of the first five races in both years.

Prost has tailed off a bit this year compared to last, but his decline hasn’t quite been as bad as defending series champion Nelson Piquet Jr.'s, who’s suffered a nightmarish start to his title defense. Piquet won his first race in the series at Long Beach this year.

Team-wise, e.Dams Renault has led the way both years:

	Team (Nat.)	Car		‘16	Pos.	‘15	Pos.
ED	e.dams Renault (FRA)	Renault Z.E 15		136	1	110	1
DR	Dragon Racing (USA)	Venturi VM200-FE-01		102	2	56	5
AB	ABT Schaeffler Audi (GER)	ABT Schaeffler FE01		92	3	79	2
VR	DS Virgin Racing (GB)	Citroen Virgin DSV-01		66	4	78	3
MR	Mahindra Racing (IND)	Mahindra M2ELECTRO		39	5	36	8
AA	Amlin Andretti (USA)	Spark SRT01-e		31	6	62	4
VE	Venturi (MON)	Venturi VM200-FE-01		30	7	8	10
AG	Team Aguri (JPN)	Spark SRT01-e		20	8	40	7
NT	NEXTEV TCR (CHN)	NEXTEV TCR FormulaE 001		14	9	49	6
TR	Trulli GP (SUI)	Motomatica JT-01		0	10	12	9

Both teams that have used the season one chassis and powertrain have seen their points totals drop.

The points were more evenly spread last year. Last year, just 43 points separated second-placed Abt from eighth-placed Mahindra through five races. Now, 70 points separates the top four in the championship and there’s a further 27 points from there back to fifth-placed Mahindra this year. The Trulli team bowed out of the championship this year before any races.

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