SÉBASTIEN BUEMI CRUISES TO ROUND 7 WIN IN MONACO
News Cars Motors and accessories By Editor_wr On May 5, 2025
Envision Racing's Sébastien Buemi strode to a comfortable win in the 2025 Monaco E-Prix Round 7, having started eighth on the grid in the Principality for his third win on the Riviera as he led home Nissan's Oliver Rowland and Jaguar TCS Racing's Nick Cassidy.
The Swiss – Formula E's Season 2 champion – last won 78 races ago in New York City in 2019, but stamped his authority on the final third of this race, having clambered his way through the pack in super slippery wet conditions from eighth at lights out.
Buemi took full advantage in picking up the pieces from a Rowland lunge at the chicane on Lap 21. The Brit was trying to pass Jean-Éric Vergne who led through much of the encounter with a typically staunch defence – doubly enforced by a mid-race appearance for the FIA Safety Car, which quashed his three-second lead.
The Nissan driver's move was later judged over-exuberant by the stewards, forcing him to later cede the position to Vergne in recompense, but the damage cost DS PENSKE's double champion a crack at the race win, as Mahindra's Nyck de Vries and Buemi made it by as JEV bogged down in avoiding action.
Cleverly, Rowland gave that spot back to Vergne amid his move off-line for that final mandatory 50kW, four-wheel drive ATTACK MODE activation, allowing him to use that overlap of extra power and traction to push past Vergne and de Vries on Lap 23 and 24 respectively for second place at the flag, some four seconds back from Buemi.
Nick Cassidy (Jaguar TCS Racing) picked his way through the field from 14th to third and a first podium of 2024/25, with a strong energy advantage built early on yielding late progress.
António Félix da Costa was the best of the Porsches in fourth, with de Vries eventually settling for fifth and another strong score for Mahindra. Vergne followed in sixth in the end, though it could and maybe should have been more.
That sees Rowland head to home soil for Nissan in Tokyo in a commanding position at the top of the Drivers' standings on 115 points to da Costa's 67. Porsche narrowly tops the FIA Teams' World Championship table 133 points to Nissan's 126, but Nissan leads Porsche in the FIA Manufacturers' World Championship standings 191 to 163.
Envision was bottom of the FIA Teams' World Championship heading into Monaco, with no win since Monaco 2023, but Buemi's win sees the squad lift themselves into ninth spot.
Sébastian Buemi, No. 16, Envision Racing said:
'I thought I would never win again at some points, so you know you need a bit of luck, you need the right timing, you need the right car, a good team, and today everything just came together, so I'm so happy. I'm actually speechless because you know it's been a long time. It was obviously quite tricky at the beginning with the fight with António [Félix da Costa] and Max [Guenther], but in the end the timing of the ATTACK MODE was good, I was able to make a gap and I was safe when Oli [Rowland] took his second one. I was able to read where the track was drying up, especially in Turns 3 and 4, there was lots of lap time to be gained, but you needed the confidence and today I had it. I thought that my number of wins would never change but it did today, so I'm very proud.'
The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship heads next to Tokyo for a double-header in Odaiba in two weeks' time on 17 & 18 May. SÉBASTIEN BUEMI CRUISES TO ROUND 7 WIN IN MONACO
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