The sounds from the grandstands at Portland International Raceway during the Portland E-Prix are different than any other race that comes through here.

Thanks to the relative silence of the electric engines used by the Formula E cars, the most constant noise comes from above as a helicopter loops the two-mile track for TV coverage. There’s no smell of gas or oil. There’s no engines revving. There’s just the Jetsons-esque putter and whoosh of cars flying close to 200 mph down the straights followed by applause every minute and 11 seconds for 27 laps.

The sound of what happened to Nick Cassidy on lap 26 was different, though.

The driver for Jaguar TCS Racing was two minutes away from his second win in Portland in as many tries, pacing the race with just more than a lap remaining when disaster struck. Leading a pack of 19 cars heading into the final corner of Lap 26, Cassidy lost control, spinning his vehicle into the grass.

Some in the crowd groaned and others screamed as Cassidy’s teammate, Mitch Evans, passed him. Then came Antonio Felix da Costa and Robin Frijns. Within seconds, Cassidy found himself at the back of the grid and later he watched as da Costa stood on the top podium at PIR.

“I really just wanted to keep it clean and be there at the end and see how it goes,” said da Costa, who picked up his third win in his last four races for Tag Heuer Porsche. “Nick made a mistake, Mitch had a penalty, and I took advantage.”

Saturday marked the second time Formula E has raced in Portland, with the series debuting in the Rose City last year with one of the more exciting races of the 2022-23 season. Cassidy won that race, which featured more than 200 overtakes amongst the grid, and returned to Portland in 2024 sitting as the current standings leader with four races to go in the season. With a good weekend in Portland — the series races part two of the weekend doubleheader on Sunday — the Australian could have clinched the season points title. Instead, the championship will likely extend to next month’s London E-Prix.

That doesn’t mean the Portland race didn’t feature some history. The tightly contested race finished with the fastest average speed ever in Formula E’s 10-season existence, with the 21-car field averaging 94.474 mph over the 53 miles of total circuit.

“We knew the type of racing we were going to get and everybody is super good at it,” third-place finisher Jean-Eric Vergne of DS Penske said about a Portland track that, on occasion, saw racing extend six cars wide down the homestretch of the 63-year-old raceway. “The race is never actually flat out because everybody is pushing so hard from the start to be in the front. It’s hard to build that buffer to be flat out.”

Gates opened up on Saturday at 7 a.m. as the race day kicked off with a practice session followed by qualifying. Fans packed onto the grounds to drive the available racing simulators, to listen to a concert from TikTok artist JXDN and to stroll through the pit lane for autographs with drivers who found comfort from the sun under umbrellas held by media staff.

Two months ago, Formula E fans took in the luxurious sights of Monaco. On Saturday, some waited in line for Burgerville and other Portland food trucks that populated the track. Fans wore Nissan shirts, Porsche hats and one shirt worn by a man in line for an autograph simply read: “What the $#! Is KwH?”

KwH is kilowatt-hours, by the way, a unit of measurement for storing electricity that Portland race fans likely won’t need to grow too familiar with. The Sunday race is the last of the series’ two-year contract with Portland, meaning race weekends in the Rose City will transition back to the petrol-heavy NASCAR and IndyCar series showcases during the summer.

But if Formula E does decide to make Portland a more permanent home, at least the drivers don’t seem to mind. The racing has been that good here and da Costa said he expects it to be the same way in Sunday’s finale.

“If you don’t engage straight away you’ve lost it,” he said. “You cannot come back on the initial pace. As the pace picks up, everybody accesses more energy, and if you don’t go at the front at the right moment you may never go to the front.”

-- Tyson Alger for The Oregonian/OregonLive