Sebastien Buemi’s 12-year Components E profession will finish this weekend in London – after the 2016 champion has determined to not pursue the opportunity of a drive within the Gen4 period of the all-electric world championship.
Envision introduced as we speak that each Buemi and present team-mate Joel Eriksson will depart the group after the London E-Prix.
The Race understands that Zak O’Sullivan examined the Jaguar Gen4 improvement automotive at Estoril final week and is a key driver of curiosity to affix the already signed Maximilian Guenther on the Chinese language owned/British based mostly group subsequent season.
The group will verify its line-up after the London finale this weekend.
Buemi, who has competed in all however two of the 161 E-Prix held since 2014, will race in his closing occasion this Sunday for the Envision group that he has competed with since 2023.
Previous to that, the Swiss driver drove for Renault and Nissan between 2014 and the beginning of the Gen3 period.
Buemi has now taken the choice to focus on his profitable endurance profession with the Toyota Racing operation, with which he has received 4 Le Mans 24 Hours and 4 World Endurance Championship titles.
All bar certainly one of Buemi’s 14 Components E wins got here with the e.dams’ iteration of the Renault and Nissan operations – and his single Gen3 win in his time with Envision got here on the 2025 Monaco E-Prix.
Buemi was nicely crushed by Nick Cassidy of their single season collectively in 2023, a marketing campaign through which Buemi appeared to wrestle with the brand new pack racing that self-generated by the Gen3’s preliminary quirky technical set-up, particularly with the fickle Hankook tyres.
However in opposition to Robin Frijns in 2024 and 2025 Buemi fared significantly better and was sometimes proper on the entrance, as he has been this season.
Buemi will bow out of Components E not on the prime, as he so usually was within the first period of Components E.
He’s nonetheless fast, aggressive and retains a large quantity of respect from the paddock for each his achievements and his burning and unflinching dedication to motorsport, through which he has carved out a deserved repute as the last word skilled.
What’s Buemi’s FE legacy?
A tally of 14 wins, 36 podiums, 17 poles and one title tells solely a small proportion of certainly one of Components E’s OG drivers and certainly one of its most intensively pushed operators.
Buemi has a robust case of being essentially the most lively, profitable and, collectively, one of many best-paid drivers exterior of Components 1 since he left racing’s highest echelon on the finish of 2011.
He’s as fierce a competitor as has ever set foot in a Components E automotive. However maybe extra spectacular has been his endurance the place he has remained aggressive nicely into his 30s.
It says an amazing deal that he has each probability of signing off with at the least a podium place in London this weekend, because the fingers of time lastly push by even past his energy and tick from Gen3 to Gen4 and the beginning of a real new Components E period.
It’s simple to overlook now that he was simply 23 when his F1 profession petered out. There have been at the least a few events when he might need returned to it however as a substitute he has turn into essentially the most embellished endurance sportscar driver of contemporary occasions and a bona fide Components E legend.
It isn’t a lot how he does that, as a result of it is genuinely come from laborious work, mind and ability. However it’s the ‘why?’.
Why did Buemi really feel the necessity to take an opportunity on a nascent collection like Components E when in all actuality it was little greater than an bold, at first poorly-organised dream that appeared as if it might die in its first season?
Intriguingly Buemi raced in A1GP when he was 17 and 18 years of age on the very begin of his profession. He didn’t do this for any altruistic motive. He did it simply to race. However maybe subconsciously he picked up the understanding that attempting one thing new and absorbing expertise by way of skilled fingers reminiscent of Max Welti and former McLaren and Williams engineer James Robinson may truly lead someplace.
Quick-forward six or seven years from the A1GP days and Buemi re-engaged with Jean-Paul Driot (under, left), the legendarily forceful and pushed boss of the DAMS empire that was branching out into Components E. Buemi had another affords however Driot’s was by far essentially the most compelling.
Though the 2 had not labored collectively in GP2, they’d talked extensively after they shared the A1GP paddock, with Buemi racing for Switzerland and Driot operating the French squad. It shortly grew to become obvious that they shared excessive beliefs of professionalism and racing need.
From there, the pair created early Components E historical past with a number of victories and the 2015-16 title.
There’s additionally some irony in that Buemi will participate in his final E-Prix this weekend in the identical race as his former nemesis Lucas di Grassi, the motive force with whom he clashed within the Gen1 period, retires as nicely.
That previous bitterness has lengthy since gone and Buemi was beneficiant in his tribute to di Grassi earlier this yr when the Brazilian announced his own exit.
“We’ve not all the time been good buddies, even when I’d say as we speak we’re all good,” Buemi instructed The Race.
“He’s possibly the motive force that has contributed essentially the most to Components E. All of us must acknowledge that he’s been there from the start and he got here up with nice concepts on find out how to construct the championship initially.
“I feel he was a part of what made Components E that good, particularly within the first few years of the championship, so he deserves plenty of credit score for doing that.”
Di Grassi is predicted to be as effusive in his reward for his former rival, too – and whereas it should come from a really totally different character, it will likely be real nonetheless.
