'Trusting relationship' with DS engineer key to success – Vergne

With 117 Formula E starts to his name, Jean-Eric Vergne is a bit of a veteran in the all-electric series! The former Toro Rosso F1 driver is the only driver to have won the Formula E title twice, whilst he recently became just the second driver to surpass 1000 career points.

At the season 10 opener in Mexico City last month, Vergne's superb P6 saw him reach 1000 career points, a feat only achieved prior to this by Season 3 Champion Lucas di Grassi. Considering the all-electric series is only in its 10th campaign, it's a remarkable achievement for Vergne, who has been in the championship since the third ever race.

Alongside his 117 starts, 1027 career points and two titles, Vergne has also won 11 Formula E races and has featured on the podium a total of 34 times. In the recent Diriyah double-header, Vergne also claimed his 15th career pole in the series, putting him level with Season 2 Champion Sebastien Buemi for most pole positions in the sport.

Vergne started his Formula E career with Andretti back in the first season before joining DS Virgin Racing for the second campaign. He was on the move again for Season 3, as he joined Techeetah.

The 33-year-old has stayed with the side ever since and saw DS join them in Season 5, with them being known as DS Techeetah. However, at the conclusion of the Gen2 era at the end of Season 8, Techeetah departed Formula E, whilst DS partnered with Penske.

DS stuck with Vergne, who they'd formed a relationship with. Effectively, Vergne has been with the same outfit since Season 3, with his back-to-back titles having been claimed in Season 4 and Season 5.

Looking back on his Formula E career after reaching 1000 career points, Vergne recognises that his close relationship with DS and an engineer in particular has been crucial to reaching the impressive milestone.

'We have trust'

“It's fair to say that from Season 3, everything started to be quite good for me,” Vergne explained to Formula E. “Ever since then, I've been in the same team.

"We have had different owners with different names, but the key engineer in that team, the key person, has always been the same. As a result, you're able to build a very good trusting relationship together with the team and you're able to tell them whenever they're doing something wrong, or with me whenever I'm doing something wrong.

“Of course, we have this trust in the relationship. All the history that we have together really helps us to stay on top and never be content with ourselves. We are a team that likes to win, and I hate losing much more than I like winning.

"I think it's probably the same as my team. It really drives us sometimes when things don't go right. It's very important to be able to regroup as a team to be able to bounce back,” Vergne continued. “I think we've done that a few times through the history of working together and we’ll keep doing it.”