Sebastien Buemi will likely become the longest serving driver in Formula E after it was revealed he has extended his role at Envision Racing on a "multi-year deal" today.
The 2015-16 champion, who is tied for the most wins in Formula E (14, with Mitch Evans), has weathered the storm of a poor 2024 by showcasing a renewed aptitude for grabbing strong results in 2025.
The clear headline grabber was his return to the victory circle for the first time in almost six years when he trounced the field at a wet Monaco race. But arguably his most impressive performance of the season came at Jakarta in June.
A troubled build up to the race left Buemi initially nowhere in free practice but a brilliant effort in qualifying meant he lined up seventh on the grid.
Just prior to the start Buemi’s car was in bits after a late powertrain change. The car only just made it on to the grid and even from there the team was working on it right up until the five-minute board was displayed.
In the race Buemi was initially conservative but soon settled down. However, he was penalised, unfairly it turned out, for a clash with Edoardo Mortara’s Mahindra.
Taking the chequered flag was an achievement but one that instantly resulted in a plummet to eighth position after a five-second penalty was applied. Some firm team management led by Leon Price gathered evidence supporting this slight of justice and Buemi’s original third place finish was reinstated.
It’s become a bit of a languid cliche to describe Buemi’s results as a resurgence of the old master reminding everyone of what he can achieve. But what a performance like Jakarta showed was that Buemi can still deliver the goods in difficult circumstances.
We’re delighted to confirm that @Sebastien_buemi has re-signed with Envision Racing on a multi-year deal 🔥
— Envision Racing (@Envision_Racing) August 28, 2025
The Swiss superstar - tied for the most wins in Formula E history (14 🏆), with 35 podiums and 16 poles to his name - will be leading the charge with us into Season 12 and… pic.twitter.com/Egq4oa4bQV
That poor 2024 season might have derailed the motivation or the hunger of another driver. If you assume that of Buemi then you probably don’t know him that well at all.
“We went from one extreme to the next with winning (the teams title) in season nine (2023) to P6, last year (2024),” he told The Race in London last month.
“This year, it's been a much bigger change than I was expecting, because the tyres are a bit different and the bodywork, but it's the same car somehow.
“When I got to Jarama (test in November 2024), I realised it's quite a big change. The tyres were a big thing, the four-wheel drive was a big thing, the attack mode, the pit boost, the race strategy around all those things was massively affected.
“Also, the bodywork, it changed the aero balance of the car, it changed quite a lot of things. So, to some extent, I think that the podium in Jakarta, the win in Monaco, the fourth place in Tokyo, which in my opinion should have been potentially a podium as well, there were good races."
But then there were some bad ones too. Jeddah was the lowest of the low of the season and it tested Buemi’s patience and that of the team’s extensively.
“We had no pace and we’d been struggling a lot with reliability,” Buemi says with a sigh.
“Changing the powertrain a lot was difficult and we just never could get into a rhythm.”
The high dive that worked
With just six points on the board going into Monaco and approaching the halfway point of the season, you could have got some decent odds on Buemi quietly seeing out his final Formula E season with some meek lower-level points performances.
But the reality was that just as he jumped sheepishly off the Monaco Piscine high board celebrating his victory in the principality, the ripples he created were in a way a message to the paddock.
‘I can still win in this thing’ was the paraphrased mantra that he may as well have screamed as he plummeted into the chlorinated water below...
Buemi didn’t crush now-departed team-mate Robin Frijns. Despite the skewed final stat of Buemi scoring 61 points more than the Dutchman, the reality was that they were actually pretty even on pace and potential, and Frijns actually getting the qualifying bragging rights at 9-7.
But Buemi largely got the better breaks and was able to fight back from an initial assumption in testing at Jarama that a season at the back of the field might have to be wrestled with in 2025.
That was because Jaguar and Envision were throwing the new tyres at its cars as it tried to publicly mask to an extent where it was at with the Gen3Evo car, which in reality wasn’t anywhere at all.
That meant to an extent other teams got an advantage at the Jarama test too because they focused on testing to suit the race format rather than going for out and out lap times, which Jaguar did as it topped the test with Evans.
Buemi went through a kind of after-wash with this scenario playing out, and like the factory Jaguar pair suffered with some initial reliability challenges. But when things came together from mid-season onwards he was starting to enjoy himself.
“It looks like I've been a bit better this year than I was last year,” says Buemi, who reckons the new Hankook rubber was at least a bit of a factor in his re-emergence as an occasional front runner.
“Whether it's all on the tyre or on the rest, I can't really say. I feel like it has more grip, but somehow the way the tyre behaves, it remains a bit the same too as it incentivises you to drive in a certain way, which is still not really the way I usually do a good job at.
“I try to adapt, and I try to get the most out of it, like everyone in the paddock.”
Buemi will enter his 12th Formula E season this December with the same concentrated professionalism that has become his trademark. That he got there with the implicit backing of the Envision management and his engineering crew says everything.
They value his experience and his dedication. It seems likely that Envision can have a similar season 12 to the one it had in 2024. The balance of the manufacturer and customer dynamic is tipped to the former's side, something that the team and its experienced driver know and have to deal with.
The Gen4 era is the one that it will start to major on right now. That is when Buemi’s experience and knowledge will really give it a leg up. Should it provide a fertile ground for customers to get one over the manufacturers, as it did in 2023, then Buemi will become a serious darkhorse for at least adding to his 14 e-Prix wins and maybe even much more.
Prior to that will be the final Gen3 season, in which Buemi and Envision will also sniff the possibility of capitalising on manufacturers balancing racing and concurrently testing for Gen4. It could just be another opportunity that Buemi seizes.
