Envision Racing confirms Sebastien Buemi & Robin Frijns for 2024-25 Formula E World Championship

As one of the last teams on the grid, Jaguar customer team Envision Racing has unveiled its driver pairing for the eleventh Formula E season on Thursday. As in the previous season, the 2023 world champion team will also compete in the 2024-25 season with Sebastien Buemi and Robin Frijns.

Although the 2024 season was anything but successful for Envision with 7th place in the overall standings, the team showed a clear upward trend at the end of the season and achieved three podium finishes in the last four races, after the team had only scored a total of twelve championship points in the nine races before. Thanks to this final spurt, they were able to leave McLaren and Maserati behind at the end of the season.

The team relies on the consistency of its drivers: Sebastien Buemi is contesting his third season for the team, Robin Frijns his sixth, with a one-year break: the Dutchman drove for ABT Cupra in 2023.

Filippi: "Want to take the momentum from the last races with us"

"It's great to have continuity in our driver line-up as Sebastien and Robin lead us into Season 11," said Sylvain Filippi, Managing Director and CTO of Envision Racing. "Despite Season 10 not being our strongest year, we are confident that the momentum we gained in the closing rounds can be taken into next season and put us back where we want to be."

"As a team, we improved significantly towards the end of last season to get back to the front of the grid," says Sebastien Buemi. "The results showed this. We will continue to push to ensure that we head to Sao Paulo with the same level of competitiveness."

"I started off Season 10 relatively strong, with a podium in Round 3," explains Robin Frijns. "However it took some time to adjust to the new car and style of racing. We worked extremely hard to make that adjustment and by the end were fighting at the front again, so our focus now is on continuing that into next season."

2025 Berlin E-Prix: Envision without replacement drivers despite WEC clash?

In the meantime, rumours emerged that Envision might not stick with the driver pairing, as both Buemi (Toyota) and Frijns (BMW) have contracts with manufacturers that give priority to races in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) over Formula E. Due to a clash of dates with the WEC race in Spa-Francorchamps, Envision has already had to replace both drivers at the Berlin E-Prix in May this year - much to the dissatisfaction of team boss Filippi.

Although the WEC race in Sao Paulo will also take place at the same time as the 2025 Berlin E-Prix, the situation differs significantly from last year: the race in Brazil takes place in the WEC season after the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which means that the clause in Buemi's Toyota contract that prioritises the WEC does not apply, according to the colleagues of FE Notebook. Frijns' BMW contract is also said to be similarly worded.

"I’m quite confident we’ve sorted the situation," Filippi told FE Notebook. "It's different (to this year) because it’s a clash with Berlin, but it’s a clash after Le Mans, so I think we will be fine."

Overall, Envision Racing (including predecessor Virgin Racing) is one of the most successful teams of the first 10 Formula E years: with 1723 points and 53 podiums, the team even leads the all-time leaderboard in two statistics.

The 2024-25 season starts on 7 December with the race in Sao Paulo (Brazil). Before that, the official pre-season tests will take place in Valencia, Spain, from 4 to 7 November.