Joel Eriksson has been recruited by Envision to replace Robin Frijns and race alongside the recently re-signed Sebastien Buemi in its 2025-26 season Formula E line-up.
Eriksson guested for Envision at the 2024 Berlin E-Prix when he filled in for Buemi during a World Endurance Championship clash, and generally impressed the team as he took a ninth place. Since then the 27-year-old Swede has performed an FE reserve and development role for Jaguar, a position he first took in 2022, alongside some GT racing.
Team principal Sylvain Filippi said Eriksson had "proved to us how talented he is and adapted very quickly" not only in the Berlin races but when he had his very first Formula E test with the team in its DS Virgin days in 2018. Eriksson called his return to the FE grid "a huge moment in my career and one that I have been working towards for a while".
The Race revealed last month that Eriksson was set to take Frijns’ seat in a surprising move by the team, even internally with some engineers within the team known to have wanted driver consistency for the final Gen3 season.
Frijns is understood to have had the general backing of the engineering team to get a third consecutive season but pressure from the board of the team - which is chaired by former BMW and Porsche employee Franz Jung, who reports directly to Envision owner Lei Zhang - prompted a change and handed Eriksson his opportunity.
Technical changes at Envision too
Envision has employed collective additional responsibilities within its technical team since January when former technical lead Mike Lugg exited the team.
Race engineers Connor Summerville (Buemi) and Ben Scott (Frijns) took on some wider responsibilities of the technical management in conjunction with the performance engineers, as Lugg was not directly replaced.
The Race understands that Eriksson will work with Scott and fellow engineer Cory George this coming season.
Experienced team manager Leon Price, son of the late David Price who founded DPR and DP composites, also took on additional management responsibilities last season and will continue in his role as an effective second in command to team principal Sylvain Filippi, who has been an ever-present at the team since it was formed in 2013.
In another change at the team, engineer Maxine Menneglier is set to join Porsche next season in a yet to be specified role.
Menneglier has previous experience at Pirelli, plus the Red Bull and Aston Martin Formula 1 teams, and will join Porsche in January 2026.
Envision is presently in discussions with manufacturers about supply for the Gen4 period which begins at the end of 2026.
It has previously partnered with DS, Audi and for the last three seasons Jaguar, which will again power the team this coming season.
