Buemi rose from 19th to third place in the Marvel Fantastic Four London E-Prix, a run that moved him ahead of Nick Cassidy to become the overall season winner for the ABB-backed prize that honours the driver who has made the most progress at every race.
The Envision driver’s podium charge in London meant Buemi climbed 86 places over the course of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season, four more than Cassidy.
Buemi’s rise was actually remarkably steady, as gradual progress propelled him up the order.
Impressively, Buemi picked off a few cars early while doing a good job to keep his energy usage sensible, he made it to the fringes of the top 10 before one-third distance.
A Full Course Yellow paused his progress briefly, but at this point Buemi’s state of charge was strong compared to those in the points. Already up seven places, Buemi was in a great position to attack - and he did, literally.
Buemi armed himself with ATTACK MODE for four minutes for the first time on lap 11. This was an effective phase of the race for Buemi as in the space of just four laps he rose from 12th to eighth, making good use of his extra power and all-wheel-drive.
Sometimes drivers get too greedy in this phase and spend too much energy, causing them longer-term pain. But being smart with his energy early on meant Buemi had a handy surplus, and he deployed it well - an incident between Oliver Rowland Nico Mueller then bumped Buemi up another place, and triggered a Safety Car that neutralised the race again.
This all helped Buemi hold seventh through the middle of the race rather than slip back again, still with a little more energy than those around. He then used this to make even more ground with his second ATTACK MODE activation on lap 27, moving all the way up to fourth - the last move coming on Jake Dennis in the final seconds with extra power.
That turned out to be the vital podium to score a podium, too, as a time penalty for Mitch Evans elevated Buemi into the top three at the chequered flag.
Envision’s double
Buemi’s team-mate Robin Frijns made it an Envision Engineered to Outrun double by taking honours in race one. And coincidentally, Frijns started in the same place as Buemi would in the season finale.
But Frijns’ path to the points was rather different. Race one was a PIT BOOST race so it had a fundamentally different strategic shape.
Frijns picked his way through a lap one kerfuffle to run 17th in the first stint. He and engineer Ben Scott opted for an energy conversation strategy to extend that stint and run longer than anybody else before making his mandatory pitstop.
This being a PIT BOOST race, choosing when to come in for fast charging was a significant variable. Frijns cycled up the order all the way to front, waiting until lap 25 to stop - several laps longer than most and eight laps later than the earliest.
At the same time, Frijns opted not to use ATTACK MODE, instead saving his two activations for the final third of the E-Prix when he had more energy than his rivals. This came at a short-term loss, because the combination of saving energy while others had several minutes using four-wheel-drive and extra power meant Frijns had lost a little ground by the time he stopped.
He rejoined in 19th, two places worse off that early on, but with his state of charge and ATTACK MODE allowance on his side. Quickly repassing Taylor Barnard, Frijns then activated ATTACK MODE for the first time on lap 29, for six minutes.
He charged into the points from here, carving his way through the midfield with a mixture of competitive overtakes and having to weave through a couple of incidents for other drivers. His final moments in ATTACK MODE were then neutered by a safety car, at which point Frijns had just got himself into ninth place.
After the restart, Frijns was the only driver left with any ATTACK MODE to use. Arming himself with his remaining two minutes lost him a place that he immediately regained, and he was able to grab eighth from Sam Bird with just a few seconds of extra power remaining. A post-race penalty for Jake Dennis then elevated Frijns even higher to seventh.
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