– With DS Automobiles’ last appearance at the London E-Prix last Sunday, an important chapter in the history of Formula E came to an end. From DS Virgin Racing through the triumphant years with DS Techeetah to DS Penske: The French manufacturer has decisively shaped the development of the championship – and said goodbye in the last race with Taylor Barnard’s victory with a real highlight.
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The history of DS Automobiles is hard to separate from that of Formula E – and vice versa. When the French manufacturer entered the series in 2015, it was only in its second season. DS itself was still an extremely young brand, having been launched only in June 2014. Thus, the brand and the championship developed more or less in tandem.
For DS, it was about using electric motorsport as a technological testing ground and employing Formula E as an accelerator for the development of future electrified production vehicles. The racing series, in turn, wanted to grow and attract as many manufacturers as possible – which led to enormous growth for the entire project.
DS Virgin Racing: The first successes
The adventure of DS Automobiles began alongside the British team Virgin Racing around Sir Richard Branson, which had already been on the grid in the inaugural season. Sam Bird quickly became one of the key figures of the program: Already in his fourth race in Buenos Aires, he gave DS its first victory.
The Englishman raced for three seasons alongside Jean-Eric Vergne, Jose Maria Lopez, and Alex Lynn and became the driving force of the Virgin years. Some of his victories even had historic significance: In July 2017, he won the very first car race ever in the New York borough of Brooklyn and repeated this triumph the very next day.
A few months later, in April 2018, he also won the premiere of the Rome E-Prix in Italy. At the end of the first three seasons, the first Gen1 vehicle generation with DS Performance powertrain had five wins and 16 podiums to its name.
DS Techeetah: Two years at the top of electric motorsport
The introduction of the Gen2 car for the 2018/19 season marked a turning point, as the technically much more advanced vehicle was completely developed by DS Performance. At the same time, DS Automobiles parted ways with Virgin and teamed up with the Chinese team Techeetah. The new alliance DS Techeetah was to set the benchmark in the championship from then on.
Vergne, who had already become champion with Techeetah in the previous season (then still as a customer team with Renault power), was joined by Andre Lotterer as a teammate. The DS E-Tense FE19 proved competitive right away and secured seven podiums.
On July 14, 2019, Vergne crowned himself in New York with three season wins as the first two-time champion in the history of Formula E. Since DS Techeetah also won the team championship at the same time, DS Automobiles secured the brand’s first title.
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Just one year later, DS followed up and secured the double again! For the 2019/20 season, Lotterer was replaced by Antonio Felix da Costa. The Portuguese driver stamped his mark on the pandemic-affected season. The championship was finally concluded with six races within nine days on different layouts at the Berlin-Tempelhof airport site.
Felix da Costa secured the drivers’ title, while DS Techeetah successfully defended the team crown – another historic success under extremely difficult conditions.
This era undoubtedly represents the golden age of DS in Formula E. The dominance in the 2019/20 season remains impressive: Four wins and nine podiums in eleven races as well as a lead of 77 points in the team world championship. No team had ended a season with such a huge cushion until then.
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Over the four Gen2 seasons, DS Techeetah collected ten wins, 15 pole positions, and 28 podium finishes in 55 races – and finished every single championship among the top 3 teams. A record that remains unmatched since. By this time, DS Automobiles was no longer just an important player in Formula E but the absolute benchmark.
Jean-Eric Vergne: Figure of identification and brand ambassador
If one driver had to be linked to this journey, it would of course be Vergne. The Frenchman has a very special relationship with DS: He already raced for DS Virgin Racing in the brand’s inaugural season 2015/16 before returning to the manufacturer via DS Techeetah and later continuing the path with DS Penske.
Vergne, who first became champion in 2018 before joining DS Techeetah and added the title in 2019 with DS, was until last Sunday the only two-time Formula E champion (Pascal Wehrlein has since matched this). He also played a major role in DS’s second team title in 2020. Over the years, prominent names joined him: Bird, Lopez, Lynn, Lotterer, Felix da Costa, Stoffel Vandoorne, Maximilian Günther, and finally Taylor Barnard.
DS Penske: A new chapter with the Gen3 era
In 2022, the next generational change followed: Formula E switched to the Gen3 car, and DS Automobiles allied with Penske Autosport this time. DS Penske started with a real top-tier duo: Vergne and Vandoorne, who joined the team as the reigning world champion from Mercedes.
The landslide dominance of the Techeetah years could not be exactly repeated, but DS developed into a challenger for the expensive factory teams like Porsche or Jaguar. Whenever a track was new on the calendar or race management became more important than pure top speed, the DS Penske team was there and controlled the action.
Thus, Vergne took the first win for the DS E-Tense FE23 in Hyderabad in February 2023. Subsequently, the Frenchman kept raising his own record tally: In April 2024, he became the first driver ever to surpass 1,000 career points in Formula E. Vandoorne also made his mark: With a pole position in Sao Paulo and a podium in Monaco, the Belgian showed strong highlights.
Later, Günther (previously Maserati) joined Vergne and helped DS back to the winner’s circle before DS Penske started with the duo Günther/Barnard. The double victory of the two in 2025 in Shanghai remains unforgettable – the last great triumph of the French-American cooperation.
At DS Penske’s very last appearance in the Formula E World Championship last weekend in London, Barnard’s fifth place in the first race initially ensured that DS broke the mark of a total of 2,000 points collected in Formula E.
The following day came the historic final point: With an outstanding victory in the very last race of the Gen3 era, Barnard, at the age of 22, became the youngest race winner in the history of the Formula E World Championship.
After wins on all continents, spread over eleven seasons with a total of 19 wins, 56 podiums, and 26 pole positions in 154 races, DS Automobiles will go down in history as one of the most successful manufacturers in Formula E.
Transparency note: This article was made possible with the help of a production cost subsidy from DS Automobiles. There was no content influence from DS on the article.
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