Even if Lucas di Grassi races in to his mid-40s he won’t be another Fernando Kristensen or Fernando Alonso. That’s because he’s Lucas di Grassi, and despite the longevity, di Grassi has always had his own style, his own USP.
The last few seasons have been tough for the 2016-17 champion. After a decent season with Venturi in 2021-22 that kept up his record of winning a race in every season bar one (2019-20) he took a wrong turn with Mahindra for 2023 and his only peak came early on with a remarkable third in his first race with the team at Mexico City.
Since then, there has been a fallow 2023-24 when he got out-performed and seriously out-scored by Nico Mueller. Plenty started writing their Formula E career obituaries but in typical di Grassi style he had other ideas.
The ABT team he so loves had to make an about-turn too after an equally nightmarish 2023 with the initial recalcitrant Gen3 Mahindra. They and di Grassi hooked up again and despite the pain of last season di Grassi was all-in with the Lola Yamaha project from a very early stage.
“I think Lola values my experience so far,” di Grassi tells FEN.
“The performance has been very good in all races. So, I have zero plans to stop and I’m evolving with the team and I’m constructing the team as I would continue forever.
“I’m building a team as I would as if I’d drive there for the next 10 years. Am I’m going to leave the end of next year, the two years after that, or if am I going to take another role in the team, outside of the team or maybe I’m going to completely change my mind from motorsport for a while, this is also possible.
“At the moment it’s all very vague. The only thing I can control is how much effort and dedication and work I put right now onto the team. I can tell you, and you know me, I’m putting 100% percent in. If I have no intention of putting a hundred percent, I will then stop.”
Di Grassi’s staying power is impressive. This is his 11th season. The first three in Formula E were dovetailed with an LMP1 WEC campaign with Audi. Since the end of that in 2016 he has turned his hands to many things. UN ambassador, sustainability advocate, entrepreneur with Roborace and E-Scooters and several other cerebrally challenging roles too. Oh yeah, and he also had two kids!
Kristensen, McNish, Hamilton, Federer…..di Grassi!
When FEN puts to di Grassi that he is in good company, including his former Audi teammates Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish by racing into his forties, he has, as usual, several interesting points to discuss.
“Tom did LMP1 until he was, what, 47? And he was still pretty good when he was my teammate,” he says.
“Allan was 43 too. So, the last year of Tom was my first year as a full-time driver. I was at the peak, I was 31 and learning still in LMP1, but Tom was a great benchmark.
“So, when you talk about this, they are complete outliers, they are the best ever. How do I analyse that? They are not at the peak of their performance anymore, but they are still good enough to be better than the others because they combine skill with experience.
“I said this in a podcast, and I got a lot of shit for it. What I said was ‘would a Lewis Hamilton now beat a Lewis Hamilton from five years ago’? Probably not, right?
“But he’s still great, because of his experience and because of his talent, way better than pretty much almost the whole grid.
“They continue to be very good, but they are past their peak. So, a bit like (Roger) Federer, when he stopped, he still won titles later on at 35 or 36 years old, but he was not the same Federer as when he was 30.
“It’s funny because when you start looking at this with more detail, when you look at some things that require pure reflex only, for example, video games, I was reading an article that video game players, they retire when they are around 24. They cannot compete when they turn that age and they are not at the same level when they were like 16, 17 and 18.
“Of course, in racing, there is some of the hand-eye coordination in that. For sure you lose some, but then you gain on other aspects that are important.
“Scott Dixon is probably one of the greatest IndyCar drivers ever. He won five times the title. Tom (Kristensen), (Fernando) Alonso, Lewis (Hamilton), even Michael (Schumacher), when he came back, he came back, he was what, 42, 43 but he was not the same as he was when he was 30.
“There are great drivers that continue to be performing. Look at, for example, André. André is 43 and he’s still going to go in endurance another three, four years and he will bring so much to a new manufacturer (Genesis).
“For me, when I think I’m not quick enough to be in Formula E anymore, I’ll probably stop.”
On the evidence of Miami last month di Grassi has a bit of distance left to cover. At Monaco this weekend who’d put it past him to consolidate that second place and send the Lola Yamaha ABT box into another celebratory frenzy.
