Buemi Signs Off the Gen3 Era with Two Top-Five Finishes in London

Formula E said goodbye to the ExCeL, and Sébastien Buemi made sure the occasion counted. Two races, two top-five finishes, and a Season 12 closed out with the kind of pace Envision Racing had been missing since Tokyo.

Saturday's qualifying left a bitter taste. Quick throughout Group B, the Swiss driver fell 0.08 seconds short of the duels and lined up tenth. Team-mate Joel Eriksson, third in his group, went out in the quarter-finals against Mitch Evans and started sixth.

The 38 laps began as an orderly procession, the front-runners controlling the pace, until everything turned on Lap 20. A second Full Course Yellow, triggered by Lucas Di Grassi's contact with the wall, handed Envision the perfect window to call Buemi in for his Pit Boost. He rejoined fifth, hunted down Dan Ticktum and Antonio Felix da Costa, then made a bold, clean move on the Briton. Fourth at the chequered flag, just short of a podium he knows well here, having stood on it in each of the past three seasons. Eriksson, hampered by contact and then vibrations, came home fourteenth.

Sunday brought an almost identical qualifying story: fifth in his group by 0.013 seconds, tenth on the grid again. Buemi bided his time, managed his energy, then triggered Attack Mode on Lap 13 to climb to sixth before taking fifth. Behind him, Eriksson worked his way from sixteenth to sixth across two activations, until contact from Pascal Wehrlein on Lap 31 spun him out of the race.

Envision Racing ends the season seventh in the Teams' Championship after a campaign of highs and lows. The London weekend also marked both drivers' final outing in the team's colours. What remains are two well-executed races, and the confidence that the speed is there heading into the Gen4 era.