Envision Racing’s Sebastien Buemi says he is happy to play second fiddle as both his team and teammate Nick Cassidy target their first title in this season’s ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.
Buemi is a veteran of the series having raced in every season since its inception in 2014, but has watched Cassidy storm to the lead in the World Championship standings following back-to-back race victories in Berlin and Monaco.
It has been a difficult couple of years for the Season 2 champion, who has finished a miserly 21st and 15th respectively in the past two seasons. This led Buemi to change team for the first time in Formula E history when he moved from Nissan e.dams to Envision for Season 9.
However, things have looked more positive this term with the 34-year-old currently sitting in 8th place in the drivers’ standings and contributing vital points to his team’s rise to the top of the manufacturer’s World Championship.
And speaking ahead of this weekend’s 2023 Gulavit Jakarta E-Prix double-header, Buemi admits that while the transition has been difficult, he is fully focused on helping the team get over the line.
“I want to be a big contributor with my points”, he said. “Obviously, Nick has done an amazing job and is contributing a lot more than me, but I hope I can get the strong results to help the team as well.
“It’s a great team who have been around for a long time. They know how to extract good performances because it’s been a customer team since the very beginning, and they are really good at doing that. I hope we can keep fighting till the end of the championship for that win.
“I found it quite a big challenge [joining Envision], just because I’ve been with the same team since the first season. Any changes we’ve had in the team back then were obviously small. I was in the same environment whereas now that was a big change and clearly requires a little bit of adaptation. But I feel like I’m fully adapted now and I’m sure there is more to come.”
Formula E has strengthened its reputation for unpredictability this season with the new GEN3 car leading the way in breaking records in the series.
There were a stunning 116 overtakes in the Monaco E-Prix last time out, which followed 362 overtakes in Berlin: 190 on the Saturday and 172 on the Sunday – record highs for the season.
This led Formula E to introduce The ABB Driver of Progress Award before Monaco, given to the driver who gains the greatest number of positions after each race. DS Penske’s Jean-Eric Vergne won the inaugural award.
It is also now 12 races in a row – a Formula E record – that the polesitter has been unable to go on to secure a race victory.
No one knows this fact better than Buemi, who has started on pole twice this season but is yet to finish a race on the podium, which he believes is evidence of the series’ competitiveness.
“It’s a bit of a curse”, he continues. “In India I had the podium and we got disqualified after the race, then in Cape Town I would have had one if I was not turned around by Wehrlein at the beginning of the race. Then in Berlin we lost it in the last quarter having consumed a tiny bit too much energy.
“Formula E has been very competitive for a long time now, and it’s true that it’s going to be really competitive in the years to come as well. I guess it makes it even more rewarding when you get a strong result, a pole position, or a podium.”
The all-electric racing series’ returns to Jakarta following a hugely successful debut last season in which a sell-out crowd and record-breaking live TV audience saw Mitch Evans (Jaguar TCS Racing) claim victory.
The Jakarta International E-Prix Circuit is a purpose-built street track bringing the best elements of street racing to the picturesque Ancol Beach – Southeast Asia’s largest park, which welcomes some 40,000 visitors a day.
Unique banked sections, undulations, and a mix of technical and high-speed sections is set to provide another real test for the drivers in what promises to be another exhilarating race this weekend.
“I think it’s going to be a tough race because it’s going to be the hottest it’s ever been so far in GEN3”, says Buemi. “I think we had a few hot races like in Sao Paulo, even India, but this one is going to be really hot and humid. It’s going to push the car, the powertrain, the battery to the limit.
“I think it’s going to be a good event and we say a doubleheader is a tough one for everyone – the mechanics, drivers, everyone involved, but we try to prepare ourselves as good as possible.”
:: Watch the opening race of the 2023 Gulavit Jakarta E-Prix double-header on Saturday 3 June live on Channel 4 from 08:30 BST.
