Formula E champions look back: Electric world championship turns 10

Across the decade since Formula E was founded, no fewer than nine drivers have claimed the title, serving to highlight how competitive and unpredictable the all-electric championship has been during its first 10 years.

Of those nine champions, seven had either raced in Formula 1 previously or would go on to compete in the championship after their title win, underlining the quality of drivers who have raced in Formula E.

Here, we speak to those nine about their successes, the highs and lows of each title-winning campaign, and what it means to have tasted outright glory in Formula E.

Nelson Piquet Jr, 2014-15 champion

Navigating sketchy finances, Piquet Jr. became the inaugural champion

Photo by: Manuel Goria / Motorsport Images

The inaugural season of Formula E went the way of Piquet via two wins and a further three podiums across the 11 races. The Brazilian’s crown came after a nervous double-header finale at London’s Battersea Park, in which he only just pipped Sebastien Buemi to the crown.

Piquet’s title success had been against the odds – he’d only committed to the championship two weeks before the first round in Beijing after facing “a lot of political pushbacks” due to his involvement in the F1 crash scandal of 2008, while there was no guarantee that the China Racing Team would even see out the campaign.

“Initially the team didn’t have the budget to finish the season,” says Piquet. “We started the championship that way and things started to go well and the only reason we managed to finish the season was because Martin Leach with NEXTEV, they bought a percentage of the team and we had the money.

“A lot of the people that were around the team didn’t get paid until the end of the season – that was one of the reasons I was really happy we were able to win this championship. Most of the people that were there in the team, they believed in me, they stuck together until the end even if they weren’t getting paid, so that was also very emotional.

“To be able to come back after leaving F1, going back to America and then starting back in open-wheel [racing] that I hadn’t driven for a long time and winning the first [Formula E] championship, for me it meant a lot.

“I think when you end up not fulfilling the career that you dreamed of it always puts doubts in your mind and then all of a sudden, you manage to really reassure yourself you still know what you’re doing and you’re still good at it, I think it’s a mixture of a lot of good feelings.

“Also I think for the team, they worked really hard to be able to put me in that seat with so many things that they had against them. It was just a fairytale story.”

Sebastien Buemi, 2015-16 champion

Buemi won out in dramatic fashion after crash with di Grassi that meant both were forced to switch early into second cars

Photo by: Adam Warner / Motorsport Images

Sebastien Buemi had only narrowly lost out on the inaugural Formula E crown from 2014-15 to Nelson Piquet Jr, but the tide turned in his favour the following season. Again the Swiss was involved in a scarcely believable showdown at the Battersea Park finale, and again he was up against a Brazilian foe.

This time it was Lucas di Grassi, and on this occasion the Renault e.dams driver narrowly came out on top after a controversial first-corner clash meant it boiled down to which of the duo was able to claim the bonus points for fastest lap.

“I remember at the time the race director saying, ‘I don’t want to see bad stuff happening,’” recalls Buemi of di Grassi’s smash into the back of him. “Somehow, knowing him [di Grassi], I knew this thing had a big probability to happen, but of course, I did not really believe it until I saw it. When I felt it, the first thing is, ‘F***, I knew it.’”

“At that point the only thing is I need to make it back [to the pits], I knew I had the second car, I knew I could go for fastest lap. I tried to stay calm, I knew I could do it and we prepared the car for qualifying attempts.

“You know you have the speed, you know you are the fastest, you know you deserve it more, but you feel like it’s going to slip through your hands. I know I can do it, but the guy is doing everything he can and not even playing fair. My feeling is I would never have done what he did, but that’s the way it is and in the end I won.”

Lucas di Grassi, 2016-17 champion

A disastrous final round for Buemi opened the door for di Grassi to become Formula E's third champion in 2017

Photo by: Patrik Lundin / Motorsport Images

Di Grassi and the Abt Audi team played second fiddle to Sebastien Buemi/Renault e.dams for much of the 2016-17 season, with the Swiss taking six wins from the first eight races.

Victory in Mexico City was fortunate for di Grassi after an early change to his second machine, and further podiums kept him in the hunt. With Buemi missing the New York double-header due to a World Endurance Championship clash, a 32-point deficit was reduced to just 10 ahead of the final two races in Montreal.

Di Grassi’s win from pole and a Buemi disqualification for being underweight in the opener swung the balance, and the Brazilian claimed the title in the final race.

“Buemi won six races and everybody told me the championship is over,” recounts di Grassi. “I didn’t let that go and I think I did one of my best seasons ever in single-seaters because to beat that powertrain on that level, with what we had, I had to drive much better than Buemi.

“I managed to be very consistent, score 100% of the points I could when the car was not that great, and what we did as a team I think was extraordinary, so I’m very proud.

“It was a huge weight off my shoulders when I won the title. It was a very difficult year because all that pressure consumes you. I woke up every day thinking about the championship. Your life is miserable in a way because you want to achieve that so much but it’s very hard to enjoy. I never enjoyed the weekends – there was so much pressure that you sleep badly, you eat badly. It was hard.

“The most satisfaction was to prove people wrong. After six races everybody said 'okay the championship is finished' and I was like, 'it’s not finished until it’s finished, it’s racing'. You have to believe, otherwise you don’t do it. You have to believe you’re the best, you have to believe you can beat the others, otherwise no chance.

“I was already in mind 'am I ever going to win it?' after season 2. So to prove people wrong and to win was a great motivation. I turned all that pressure into something.”

Jean-Eric Vergne, 2017-18 & 2018-19 champion

Vergne remains the only double Formula E champion, conquering the first year with a customer powertrain

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

The only driver to secure more than one Formula E title. Vergne achieved the feat back-to-back with Techeetah across the Gen1 and Gen2 cars. A breakthrough victory for both driver and team at the end of the 2016-17 season in Montreal paved the way for Vergne’s first title the following campaign, the Frenchman taking four wins and finishing in the points across all 12 races to secure the crown with a race to spare in New York.

The second title, now with automotive giant DS involved, was also decided in the New York finale, but after a less consistent campaign that yielded three wins and five non-scores, three of which came on the bounce during the first half of the season.

“When we started Techeetah [in 2016] it was a bit of a mess, the team was not organised very well, but we had amazing people and one of the best powertrains with the Renault,” says Vergne.

“The first title was a very proud moment considering where the team came from and what we had done with it. It was an amazing result to beat the factory Renault team – they had won everything in the past, so it was a moment where we knew as a team of people that we had what it takes to win in Formula E.

“After the first win, we said, ‘OK, next year is the Gen2 with DS.’ We knew it was not going to be easy to integrate all of the new people in the team, but we knew that we had everything that it took to do it all over again – and we did it again.”

Antonio Felix da Costa, 2019-20 champion

Da Costa prevailed amid COVID interruption in 2020 following six Berlin races shoehorned into calendar

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Victory in Marrakech and two runner-up finishes earlier in the season put da Costa firmly in title contention before the championship and world shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the series’ return after a six-month layoff for six Berlin races inside 10 days, da Costa secured a brace of wins, and another second place with two races to spare handed him the title with DS Techeetah after going head-to-head with double champion team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne.

“So much went on that year because I went to a French team with a French driver who was a double champion, so that was a big challenge,” says da Costa. “The car and the team, I wouldn’t call it dominant because nobody dominates Formula E, but they were on such a level of doing things well.

“We [with Vergne] had some hostile days in the team but I think we never stayed angry at each other for more than 12 hours. We were all grown up enough to sort things out very quickly, but at the same time we had a big fire in ourselves to beat each other and I think ultimately that pushed us so hard to perform.

“I was second in Chile, second in Mexico and then I got the win in Marrakech I was really on a roll, then COVID, big break. The problem with that was when are we going to go back? It’s my chance of winning this championship and I’ve got to finish it.

“A lot of things were on my mind during that break and when we got to Berlin, as a team I think we did an amazing job. I think we were deserving champions that year.

“When I joined Formula E it was purely a good contract that brought me here. I should have gone to F1 that year; that was the plan and everything was looking like that was going to happen and then that didn’t happen. I’m not going to F1, I’m going to this new series that is fully electric, the cars are slow, they look bad.

“So I went through a little frustration period. But [looking back] today it is the best decision I’ve ever done in my life, to come to Formula E. To see what the series has become, it’s incredible.”

Nyck de Vries, 2021 champion

Title for de Vries and Mercedes was the result of consistency in wide open season

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Prior to his stint in Formula 1, de Vries claimed the first official Formula E World Championship after the series was formally recognised by governing body the FIA for the 2020-21 season.

The Mercedes driver recorded only seven points finishes, less than half the races in one of the championship’s most competitive seasons, with 15 drivers covered by less than a race win’s worth of points in the final reckoning.

Victories in the early Diriyah and Valencia races, as well as a brace of runner-up finishes at the penultimate round in London, gave de Vries the edge heading to the Berlin finale. The Dutchman came away with just four points across the weekend, but it was enough as his rivals dramatically fell away one by one.

“The qualifying format was still the one from the beginning of the championship, which was whenever you’re ahead in the championship you’re in the first qualifying group, so naturally that kind of kept circulating or rotating through the season because there was such a penalty for being in that first group,” points out de Vries.

“You had to kind of get the timing a little bit right and I thought that we just missed it because at the penultimate round in London we had a double podium and I thought, ‘We’re going into the last round leading.’

“The season finale was obviously dramatic, and I believe that somewhat fate wanted me to win that year and I’d built up enough credits earlier on to receive them there.

“I just have good memories from that period with Mercedes. It was a great team, a great organisation, a real pleasure to work in that environment.”

Stoffel Vandoorne, 2022 champion

Vandoorne gave departing Mercedes team another title in its final season before morphing into McLaren guise

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

Stoffel Vandoorne was the definition of consistency on the way to completing back-to-back drivers’ crowns for Mercedes in the manufacturer’s Formula E swansong.

The Belgian failed to score only once in 16 races – a penultimate-lap collision in Mexico City left him 11th – and scored just one victory, in Monaco. His most impressive performance arguably came in Berlin, where he dropped to 12th on the opening lap before methodically climbing back to third by the flag. He headed to the finale in Seoul with a healthy points lead and helped secure Mercedes a second consecutive teams’ title.

“It was the last year of the Gen2 era so everyone was kind of at the top of their game with that car,” reckons the ex-McLaren F1 driver. “That’s why that consistency really paid off because it was always the same guys fighting it out at the front. Not leaving any points on the table was key. It was pretty much a dream season.

“Everyone knew ahead of that season that it was going to be the last year [for Mercedes], and it’s very easy in those situations where you can either be very motivated or you can be down about it, but I think everyone really took the positive.

“We just wanted to show everyone what we were capable of doing, and in such a short period of Mercedes being in the championship [three years], it’s pretty incredible what we achieved as a team.”

Jake Dennis, 2023 champion

Dennis became first Gen3 title with customer Porsche powertrain in his Andretti car

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Porsche hit the ground running in the new Gen3 era, which allowed customer team Andretti and Dennis to eventually come out on top in another dramatic London finale, allowing the Briton to claim the title on home soil.

Dennis entered the final round of the season with a healthy points lead after title rivals Nick Cassidy and Mitch Evans had collided at the previous event in Rome, and did enough to clinch the crown with a race to spare.

The Jaguar pair’s Rome clash allowed Dennis to take a vital lights-to-flag victory, only his second win of the season. Along with nine other podiums, that offset a barren patch of four races across nearly three months during which he had failed to score a point.

“It was a real mixed emotion from that whole season,” states Dennis. “It was a new car for everyone, so it was a big year, a lot of unknowns, but to start the season off so well with that win in Mexico and then Saudi Arabia was a great success [with two podiums].

“Then we were hit with the Formula E sort of reality check that you’re not going to walk away with this – the next few races were super-difficult and just bad luck, awkward crashes. But then it just all clicked together at the end for one big fairytale ending in London.

“Very special memories, always gives me goosebumps thinking about it. You only become world champion once for the first time, and the emotions, the feeling I had crossing the line and sharing it with the team was pretty special.”

Pascal Wehrlein, 2024 champion

Porsche finally triumphed in 2024 courtesy of Wehrlein following tight tussle with Jaguar

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Wehrlein’s maiden Formula E title came in a winner-takes-all showdown at the season finale in London after the German and Porsche had taken the fight to Jaguar drivers Nick Cassidy and Mitch Evans across the season.

Wehrlein’s campaign was built on the backbone of three wins in 16 races and only two non-scores, neither of which were predominantly his fault – he lost his front wing at Misano and suffered a puncture in Shanghai.

Despite not having led the standings since the mid-point of the season and trailing Cassidy by 25 points with just four races remaining, Wehrlein managed the extreme pressure, while his rivals faltered when it mattered most.

“It’s a great achievement and something that is very important to me and very important to the team – I’m just so happy for everyone,” beams Wehrlein. “All the hard work, all the effort, everything that we put in really paid off.

“We never stopped believing and we never gave up even if coming into the last weekend the odds were not really with us. If we executed the weekend perfectly, we still had it in our hands and in the end, we performed at such a high level.

“We won on the Saturday, which put us in a great situation for Sunday and it was super-close between Mitch, Nick and me. All three of us started in the top four and at one point we were P1, P2 and P3 and whoever would finish on top would take it all. It was a very cool situation and, in the end, it went our way.”

Wehrlein kept his cool in dramatic London finale to usurp the Big Cats

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images