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explainer season 12

Buemi and di Grassi scoop ABB Engineered to Outrun honours in Monaco

Explainer 22 May 2026 4 Mins

The benefit of experience told in Monaco as Sebastien Buemi and Lucas di Grassi scooped ABB Engineered to Outrun honours in the Principality.

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explainer season 12

Each an ABB FIA Formula E World Championship winner, and with more than 300 race starts between them, Buemi and Di Grassi know where the opportunities lie when an E-Prix comes alive. And their respective rises through the two Monaco races were a matter of when, not if, as they kept their heads while so many others about them lost theirs.

Buemi takes overall lead

Buemi's rise from 18th to 5th in Round 9 was a masterclass in reading the race, preserving his options, and being in the right place when chaos did the rest. It also launched him and engineer Connor Summerville into the overall lead of the ABB Engineered to Outrun standings for the season so far.

RACE HIGHLIGHTS: 2026 Monaco E-Prix, Round 9

Buemi's battery usage in the opening phase was among the most conservative on the grid, and his average speeds reflected that calculated restraint. Where others were spending freely, Buemi was banking a small but meaningful advantage that would pay dividends later.

The race came to him in dribs and drabs. Sometimes it took evasive action like when Nick Cassidy and Jake Dennis collided right in front of him entering the chicane early on, sometimes a feisty move as on Taylor Barnard, other times without a fight such as Oliver Rowland’s puncture. Crucially, though, when the attrition that defines Monaco made itself felt, Buemi positioned himself well enough to benefit.

His strategy centred on a front-loaded ATTACK MODE deployment, using his six minutes before the PIT BOOST stop rather than holding it back. That activation in clear air allowed him to make ground when the race was most fluid, cycling up to second at one point as others pitted around him. The data bears out how effectively he used that window: his top speeds climbed from the low 200s early on to consistently hitting 229–230 km/h through ATTACK MODE, a spread of around 25-30 km/h across the race as his energy freedom grew.

Rejoining in fifth having been outside the top 10 in the first phase of the race shows how richly this paid off. Of course, without any remaining activation, he was vulnerable to others - and was overtaken by Felipe Drugovich and then by Pepe Marti. But Buemi's residual energy advantage over the field, between 1–2% over most of those immediately around him, kept him in contention as everything unfurled.

The only downside was a late full-course yellow denied Buemi the chance to make one of those places back up. He had a battery advantage of nearly 5% over Drugovich by the closing laps but when Antonio Félix Da Costa and Dan Ticktum collided at the chicane, and it took until the final lap of the race for the ensuing full-course yellow to end, that energy difference was effectively neutralised. Another place came back anyway thanks to a post-race penalty for Ticktum, which promoted Buemi an additional step to fifth - and within a second of an unlikely podium finish, thanks to a disciplined and smart drive.

Unlikely underdog points

Prior to Monaco, the Lola Yamaha ABT Formula E Team had scored a single point all season. The weekend ended with both drivers finishing in the points in Round 10, and Lucas di Grassi scoring in both races!

A lack of qualifying pace made such an outcome even less likely than the championship picture alone suggested. In such a situation the best route to points is to keep out of trouble and let fortune do the rest - a path di Grassi followed faithfully, particularly in a turbulent second E-Prix of the weekend.

RACE HIGHLIGHTS: 2026 Monaco E-Prix, Round 10

Starting 19th, with a package that offered limited outright pace, the Brazilian set about doing the only thing available to him: preserving energy, staying out of trouble, and trusting that Monaco would create opportunities he couldn't manufacture himself. The battery data tells the story most clearly. From the very first lap di Grassi was running below the field median, and by lap 9 he had built an advantage of more than 3% over the midfield. That gap fluctuated as the race evolved, tightening through the middle phase before climbing back above 2% around lap 22, but the direction was consistent. While others spent, di Grassi saved.

His average speeds were broadly in line with the pack through the mid-race phase, though, suggesting the energy delta wasn't being bought through giving up lap time. The top speed data similarly shows no dramatic outliers, so di Grassi wasn't leaning on extra power to move through the field, he was simply keeping himself viable while attrition did the heavier lifting. And attrition duly obliged. Monaco is unkind to those who push at the wrong moment or find themselves in the wrong place, and the race's casualty list grew steadily across 28 laps. Di Grassi navigated all of it, crossing the line 11th on the road - itself an eight-place gain from his starting position - before two post-race penalties promoted him a further two places and into the points.

It was a result built almost entirely on restraint and experience: knowing that a car without the pace to attack can still find opportunities if the race is driven with intelligence and opportunism.