The 11th Formula E season is in the books, with Oliver Rowland taking the title a race early, ensuring a hero's welcome for the last round of the season in his native England this weekend.
With the 2024-25 championship sewn up, The Race takes on ranking every title-winning Formula E campaign from 11 to one.
It's worth noting this is not a driver ranking, and the entertainment of the season and the context of how it was won has been factored in to where each season is ranked.
11th: 2019-20
Champion: Antonio Felix da Costa
Recently in a prank, Jake Dennis was wired up to feed Formula E presenter Nicki Shields with silly questions to ask Antonio Felix da Costa. It was moderately funny but one question, while delivered in an innocently jokey manner by a delighted Dennis, was also pretty close to the bone.
How was it being a champion at a one track calendar?
The reaction for da Costa was a bit too visceral for comfort. Joke or no joke it clearly rankled a fair bit that his title he won was under such extraordinary circumstances.
As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, da Costa’s title triumph may always have a lack of absolute edge. But should it?
The first five rounds were tremendous with a winner in each of those races, including da Costa who triumphed in Marrakesh, his first for DS Techeetah since his big move from BMW Andretti. Prior to that da Costa had a gnarly flare up with team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne in Santiago. That was when the reigning champion lost his cool in the race and deliberately baulked da Costa.
That was a bubbling thread of intrigue but it all came to an end when the world stopped for a few months in March and COVID-enforced lockdowns commenced.
The resulting restart - the delay started in Marrakesh on February 29 and ended in Berlin on August 5 - was heroic in terms of working an operational miracle but was less than entertaining for media and fans who had to watch the action at a deserted airfield from home as the season was completed with six races across three different Tempelhof configurations in a one-week blast.
When da Costa blitzed his opposition in the first two races of the six, the title battle was done and dusted with four races to spare. It was hardly a riveting climax from a neutral standpoint but that was hardly da Costa’s fault.
It even left da Costa presenting a trophy to himself during a unique victory ‘celebration’ which happened amid the obligatory distancing. It was a surreally tepid way to win a title, hence da Costa’s fiercely burning ambition over the last five years to capture another one and to at least be able to celebrate it spontaneously this time.
10: 2021
Champion: Nyck de Vries
There are mixed emotions about Nyck de Vries’ title year.
On one hand it was a complete free-for-all with 15 drivers mathematically able to take the title that summer, the season finale again held at a sweaty Tempelhof.
The season produced scatter-gun results and random points spreading during the season. Alexander Sims, who claimed points on just four occasions before the Berlin finale, was mathematically capable of winning the title heading to Berlin. It was really anyone’s.
This was the last season of the tombola-style qualifying format in which four groups battled it out for a Super Pole face off.
In reality what it meant was that the leading drivers in the championship usually had the worst track conditions and often ended up near the back of the grid, leading to a lottery of race winners and podium finishers.
In Mercedes’ second season de Vries emerged as the most consistent threat, winning at Riyadh and Valencia and gaining two second places in London to emerge as the favourite, albeit just six points ahead of Envision’s Robin Frijns.
When Envision mysteriously went missing all weekend at the finale, Mitch Evans stalled on the grid and got collected by Edoardo Mortara, and then rookie Dennis had a braking issue that sent him careering into the wall, de Vries just had to play the percentage game to take the big trophy.
Except he didn’t. Instead, he went wheel-banging with rivals causing his team principal Ian James to palpitate wildly and the title tension to remain all through the final race.
For those watching it was a thrill ride of sorts but the title fight that season hasn’t aged well and isn’t thought of as a classic, rather more of a slapstick farce - although to be fair to de Vries he fully deserved the crown.
9: 2024-25
Champion: Oliver Rowland
Rowland’s recent capture of the Formula E World Championship was as dominant as a title has been wrapped up before. With two races to spare he steamrollered all before him in the first half of the season, meaning that a few slip ups in three of the final four races before he lifted the crown were tolerated and ultimately inconsequential.
Read more:
From 'a bit lazy' to world champion - the making of Oliver Rowland
Rowland's Formula E crown is the ultimate reward for his leap of faith
While it was an impressive achievement it meant any real jeopardy or storyline for those covering the season were hard to come by. The races were mostly still entertaining but an out-and-out headline grabber was hard to come by.
8: 2022
Champion: Stoffel Vandoorne
Stoffel Vandoorne did a 'Keke Rosberg 1982' trick by winning a world title while just a single race victory in 2022.
They say Monaco should be worth more points than a regular race, which is clearly rubbish, but in a way Vandoorne’s title majors on that excellent win in his hometown rather than any other noteworthy memory beyond a metronomic capability to achieve big points.
The cool Belgian made sure Mercedes signed off in style as it vacated the grid and transformed into McLaren. He did it by a combination of stealth and points wealth with his only non-score from the 16 races coming at Mexico City, early doors. A competition busting run of seven podium appearances was too good for even Evans in his prime to compete with.
The finale in Seoul was a bit of a damp squib as despite Evans’s win in the penultimate round, Vandoorne had his mate covered easily. There was no real crescendo as Vandoorne cruised to the title on the final day with a deft second to Mortara’s Venturi after Evans floundered.
7: 2017-18
Champion: Jean-Eric Vergne
Vergne’s first title was notable due to the fact that it was achieved in only the second season of Techeetah’s existence.
The previous summer Vergne had created a springboard for himself with a magnificent win in Montreal. It laid the ideal foundation for hitting the previous season off strongly.
Vergne did exactly that and didn’t finish lower than fifth in the first eight of the 12 races. They included three wins in Santiago (in an unforgettable bare knuckle scrap with team-mate Andre Lotterer), Punta del Este (a similarly fascinating scrap with reigning champion Lucas di Grassi) and then a win on home turf in Paris.
There was a little wobble in Zurich but Vergne had done the hard yards way earlier to leave only Sam Bird and di Grassi with outside chances of toppling him in New York. A fifth in New York put any sniff of that happening to bed and then Vergne flexed his muscles in the final race by winning his fourth of the season.
As title fights went it wasn’t much of one really. But this wasn’t an out and out cruise either. More a championship that had a perfect cadence of points scoring from Formula E’s emerging superstar with the best powertrain (Renault) on the grid.
6: 2023
Champion: Jake Dennis
The first Gen3 era title fight was a memorable one but also a fight that had a few questions to answer of itself.
The start of it was frankly a mess. The Gen3 project was late, unreliable and more worryingly included plenty of testing accidents after parts of the car's architecture were called into question, notably the braking system.
At the opening race in Mexico, Jaguar was within an ace pulling its cars on safety grounds after accidents in practice.
There was also a big lottery effect in the reliability stakes and who got the rub of the green early on. This was underlined by di Grassi claiming pole in the unfancied Mahindra, a car that went on to be by far the least competitive over the course of the season.
A kind of die was cast from the start as Andretti driver Dennis reigned supreme with a stunning win. That was followed up by six second places and another win (in Rome) as Dennis headed into his home race in London well on the front foot.
The main reason for that was two of his three title challengers, Evans (Jaguar) and Nick Cassidy (Envision) were eliminated from the second race of the penultimate round in Rome when Evans misjudged a move on his fellow Kiwi.
But this was small fry compared the absolute cataclysm the day before when a multi-car shunt triggered by Bird created a wreckage bill well into seven figures and Bird, Mortara, da Costa and Sebastien Buemi where lucky to emerge with all their faculties and limbs in place.
But what should have been a cruise for Dennis started to turn into a nightmare in the first London race as Cassidy appeared to be in complete control, while the Andretti driver got attacked on all sides including by Porsche stablemate Pascal Wehrlein.
That triggered an irate Michael Andretti to proverbially kick down Porsche’s door and remonstrate with board members in one of the season's most defining and amusing moments.
But when Cassidy unfathomably backed off and tried to play the squad game to improve Envision’s team title chances it got too messy and his team-mate Buemi punctured his team mate's Hankook, pretty much giving the title to Dennis.
There was drama aplenty in 2023, including thrilling wins for da Costa in Cape Town, Cassidy in Monaco, a Wehrlein double in Diriyah and Vergne’s barely believable Gilles Villeneuve’s 1981-style defensive masterclass in Hyderabad.
But it was a year in which the customer teams - Andretti and Envision - got one over their manufacturer suppliers and Formula E went from Gen3 joke to respectable season of great racing within just a few months.
5: 2014-15
Champion: Nelson Piquet Jr
The thrilling last race madness in Battersea Park, when Nelson Piquet Jr had to be told by a mathematics proficient Jack Nicholls from the commentary box that he was the first ever Formula E championship, was drama of the highest order.
Through a maiden season in which Formula E had danced precariously close to the cliff-face, almost gone bankrupt and had produced calendar upheaval and cars breaking their suspension on kerbs, Piquet’s title also had something of the miraculous to it.
In the opening two races at Beijing and Putrajaya, Piquet was completely lost and so was his China Racing team. But then the specialist engineering company QEV started to get more involved in the operation and things started to click with second and third places in Punta del Este and Buenos Aires respectively.
Then came a breakthrough win in Long Beach, where 34 years after his father Nelson had won his first Formula 1 grand prix in the glorious Brabham BT49, Jr came good too - helping him to start to reel in early points leader Buemi.
Another win on the streets of Moscow gave Piquet the title advantage as the tranquil setting of Battersea Park put on the first ever Formula E double-header for the grand finale.
It didn’t disappoint with Piquet coming through to snare a seventh place behind Buemi and di Grassi to take the title by a mere point, in what is still the closest winning margin in Formula E history.
4: 2016-17
Champion: Lucas di Grassi
Di Grassi’s title season was remarkable.
It featured as pure a battle between two drivers as the all-electric championship has ever delivered in what became a fascinating scrap that featured needle, blow ups, Buemi’s legendary pitlane rant in the final event in Montreal and even di Grassi fracturing his leg in a random celebrity football match at Stamford Bridge!
The fact that Buemi had scored six wins from the first eight races should really have meant an easy double title triumph for the Swiss ace in the then dominant Renault edams team.
But di Grassi stalked Buemi throughout that period with five podium positions so that by the penultimate double header at New York, a race Buemi had to miss because of a calendar clash with the World Endurance Championship's Nurburgring race on the same weekend, the Brazilian was just 32 points off his rival.
Di Grassi made a bit of a meal of a fourth and fifth in New York while Buemi was away, but those results were still good enough to chip away the deficit to just 10-points as they headed to Montreal.
To relive the full insane details of that unforgettable weekend in downtown Montreal, take a look at our ranking of every Formula E title decider - this event fared pretty well in that countdown...
These were circumstances that not only stunned Buemi (literally after his monster practice shunt) and Renault edams but it also became something of a legendary weekend that had just about every prop from the series' overactive drama department in full deployment.
3: 2018-19
Champion: Jean-Eric Vergne
Vergne’s second title season in 2018-19 isn’t just impressive because of the nature of going back-to-back but rather that he and the Techeetah team did it over the new Gen2 rules set and with a new manufacturer partner in DS Automobiles.
Both of these facts should not be underestimated, and while Vergne did it reasonably comfortably, again with a round to spare, the strength in depth of the grid by Formula E’s fifth season made it all the more difficult.
Vergne actually started slowly and by the time he left the fifth round in Hong Kong he was languishing in 11th place, 26 points off leader Bird.
Bird fell away from contention in a miserable second half of the season and Vergne’s main challenger appeared to again be di Grassi, and also Frijns. But then they both went off the boil, while Vergne picked up, winning in Sanya, Monaco and Bern. That all meant he could, to a large extent, play the percentage game at the deciding double-header in New York.
But it all seemed such a luxury was about to be squandered as he got involved in a needless melee that involved both Dragons of Jose-Maria Lopez and Max Guenther, as well as his own team-mate Lotterer. The resulting puncture left him open to his hard-won title gap being slashing but di Grassi could only take fifth and Frijns was not classified after issues. A let off.
It left Vergne needing just four points to take the title on the final day and he did so comfortably with a conservative seventh place amid minimal jeopardy, despite starting a lowly 12th.
Di Grassi meanwhile crashed out on the final lap when he nudged Evans into the wall, although he didn’t do nearly enough to threaten Vergne’s ascent to becoming Formula E’s first and only double champion, a feat that should never be underestimated.
2: 2015-16
Champion: Sebastien Buemi
Buemi was the out and out star of the Gen1 era, instantly getting the way those early pioneering Formula E races were run and how to get the best from the rather rudimentary Spark-Renault SRT 01E.
While he lost out to Piquet in the first season, the second looked like his and his only from the very first lap when he crushed the opposition in Beijing.
He did it again in Punta del Este and then two runner-up positions mid-season meant he became the overwhelming title favourite.
But when he started to make mistakes, notably in Long Beach, where arch nemesis di Grassi triumphed, wobbles and questions started to appear.
Then came June.
A week before the Battersea Park finale, in which Buemi headed into with a one point deficit to di Grassi who had also won the inaugural Paris E-Prix in Renault’s back yard, Buemi was going through a unique trauma.
About to celebrate winning his first Le Mans 24 Hours, his team-mate Kazuki Nakajima was forced to stop the car on the pit straight in one of the cruellest and most memorable moments in the great race’s immense history.
Buemi went into a kind of shock and it lasted a while. In London he had no time to digest the brutality of what went on at La Sarthe and after a fifth to di Grassi’s fourth in the first Battersea race he knew he had to get pole and beat the Brazilian in the final round, with the deficit then three points.
When he grabbed a dominant pole, the score was equalled and now it was gloves off time with di Grassi starting third, a buffer between them in the shape of Nicolas Prost, Buemi’s loyal team-mate and friend.
In what has to be a peak of Formula E on-track drama di Grassi drop-kicked his rival off the track - damaging both cars and forcing di Grassi to instantly swap to his second. Buemi, knew that with the extra mileage he had under his belt, he would be champion, albeit in extremely dramatic fashion.
1: 2024
Champion: Pascal Wehrlein
Last season’s title fight was as captivating as it was wonderfully confusing.
It had a four-way title battle that included two sets of team-mates, two who were best mates and two that were slowly disintegrating into each other (and one of those was essentially partly ostracised by his own team barely a quarter of the way through it).
Pascal Wehrlein triumphed but the main thread of the season was an intra-Jaguar battle that had some traits of the legendary 1986 F1 season when Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell battled as Williams team-mates before McLaren's Alain Prost stealthily mugged them both in the season finale.
While Jaguar pair Cassidy and Evans didn’t forcibly take points off each other, they split the scoring to a degree that Wehrlein was offered the opportunity to take Porsche's first ever crown. It was Formula E’s most enthralling season and one that was actually quite exhausting to cover.
The full range of emotions were on display. Cassidy’s joy at hitting the ground running with a 1-2 in Monaco and a brilliantly typical pack-racing masterclass at Berlin. But then there was tumult of crashing out in Sao Paulo and then an unfathomable spin at Portland when he had one hand on his so far elusive title.
For Evans there was, for once, a strong start to the season before wins in Monaco and Shanghai put him in the conversation.
For Wehrlein there was some despair at his usually strong venue Diriyah, and a careless shunt in race one at Misano. But then came clinical wins in Misano's second stanza and the first London E-Prix to set up the mother and father of all judgement days in East London.
That it came down to the title protagonists running 1-2-3 in the final knockings of the season was immense and the tension was dense in the air that day. Cassidy appeared to have the momentum after an outrageously mega qualifying where he grasped his first Jaguar pole despite missing the entire morning free practice session.
With the tension at boiling point, Jaguar needlessly attempted an overcomplicated choreography and got burned. Cassidy dropped into the pack and got clouted by da Costa’s Porsche, while Evans, who should also have won it, missed his attack mode transponder loops.
Wehrlein meanwhile was relatively serene and came through to second place behind a charging and carefree, from a title perspective, Rowland.
Da Costa was penalised but this was almost insignificant considering the season he had navigated. A sloppy start made him doubt himself and his team doubt him in turn. It kick-started an amazing run of four wins in five races, meaning that ludicrously he was in a mathematical position to snatch an unlikely crown in London.
After the madness of the final race, with heart rates across the paddock spiking to dangerous levels, in parc ferme Evans looked intently at his team boss, James Barclay and muttered darkly: “What was that?”
Barclay, not making eye contact, didn’t have much of a reply.
Wehrlein meanwhile was doing a Prost-like dance, channelling 1986 all the way to the title presentation and a brilliantly enthralling championship triumph that he 100% deserved.
