Red Bull junior Pepe Marti has joined the Cupra Kiro Formula E team and will partner Dan Ticktum at the US-owned squad this coming season.
The Formula 2 race winner becomes the third such convert, alongside Taylor Barnard and Zane Maloney, to make the switch to Formula E.
His signing also completes the 2025-26 Formula E grid, meaning there's no place for two-time podium finisher Jake Hughes.
As revealed by The Race last week, Marti had recently come into the reckoning for the last remaining 2025-26 seat after entering into serious talks with Kiro last month.
Hughes had previously been considered the favourite for the drive and tested one of the team's Porsche 99X Electric cars in the UK earlier this month. But Marti captured the seat, which will be adorned by the Spanish brand Cupra, an official partner in the operation since November 2024.
Speaking to The Race, Marti said: "Formula E is a growing championship, and there's a lot of really, really good manufacturers involved, and that obviously really brings forth a lot of interest.
"It's been interesting for a long time, and something that I've kept an eye on."
The 21-year-old will become only the fifth Spanish driver to race in Formula E after Oriol Servia, Jaime Alguersuari, and Antonio Garcia who raced for Dragon, Virgin and the China TCR teams in the first season respectively; and Roberto Merhi, the most recent Spaniard on the grid, who completed the final seven races of the 2023 season after Oliver Rowland left the Mahindra team.
Marti also told The Race that he did not know "how well I'll adapt to the car as obviously I've never driven it, so it's a bit of a mystery going into day one of testing at Valencia".
"Nonetheless, I trust in my skills, and I think that I can do a good job regardless of the situation," he added. "Unfortunately, I won't know any of the tracks, so that will be a new thing to learn and it's very different to what I've been doing up until now, where I've known some of the tracks quite well.
"Realistic goals are to obviously be in the points and to perform well and just to be quick."
Can Marti 'do a Barnard'?
In some ways, that question is a bit unfair on Marti. That's because Barnard's phenomenal success so early in his Formula E career was certainly influenced by the fact he was in one of the best overall packages on the grid: the Nissan e-4orce 05, the car that carried Rowland to last season's drivers' championship.
But then again, Kiro and Marti's new team-mate Dan Ticktum got their Porsche package singing at several races in the second half of last season and by Jakarta in June they took their collective maiden victory.
Ticktum will be a formidable team-mate for Marti. Not in the sense of being corrosive for him personally, because Ticktum has got on very well with each of the three team-mates he's raced alongside so far: Oliver Turvey, Sergio Sette Camara, and David Beckmann.
It's more that Ticktum's sheer pace might be viewed as a major hurdle to clear initially. But Marti's credentials in F2 - he is sixth in the current standings with three wins this year - suggest he should at least be able to get much closer than the insipid Beckmann.
"I've got a really, really good reference in the other car; he [Ticktum] is a very competitive, very quick guy," said Marti. "But I'm not necessarily afraid because in the end, we each believe in ourselves. But I want to do as best as possible, regardless of what he's doing.
"I just want to extract as much as I can from the car and enjoy my time in the Formula E.
"I think the idea of [pack] racing is something that I can adapt to and which I can understand. I hope that I can adapt quickly and learn precisely how to race.
"But obviously the racing and the battery is something that I will have to get adapted to and learn very quickly."
Marti's three days in the car at the pre-season Valencia test next week will be absolutely vital to how prepared he can be heading into the Sao Paulo opener in early December.
The fact that Kiro now understands the Porsche 99X Electric much better and has also invested in new and experienced managers such as Gary Paffett (racing director) and Mark Turner (operations manager) should ensure Marti is in an environment that's more conducive to collating points than his predecessor Beckmann was last season.
Complete 2025-26 Formula E driver line-up
Nissan: Oliver Rowland, Norman Nato
Porsche: Pascal Wehrlein, Nico Mueller
Jaguar: Antonio Felix da Costa, Mitch Evans
Mahindra: Nyck de Vries, Edoardo Mortara
DS Penske: Taylor Barnard, Maximilian Guenther
Andretti: Jake Dennis, Felipe Drugovich
Envision: Sebastien Buemi, Joel Eriksson
Citroen: Nick Cassidy, Jean-Eric Vergne
Cupra Kiro: Dan Ticktum, Pepe Marti
Lola Yamaha Abt: Lucas di Grassi, Zane Maloney
