“The beginning was painful” – How Vandoorne evolved with Formula E to become world champion · RaceFans

When Stoffel Vandoorne crossed the finish line in Seoul to claim the 2022 Formula E title, he fulfilled the promise of a world championship title that many felt he had show by dominating the 2015 GP2 title.

His title may not have come in Formula 1, but Vandoorne’s jubilation at taking the championship in a series he came into entirely fresh back in December of 2018, just weeks after losing his F1 seat at McLaren.

“I mean, I’ve come a long way,” Vandoorne said when RaceFans asked him to review his Formula E journey from F1 cast off to world champion.

Vandoorne’s Formula E story is also the story of both Mercedes’ involvement in the series and the life cycle of the Gen 2 car – spanning four seasons and 55 races. After starting life as HWA, the team evolved into Mercedes EQ, taking two championships in the final two seasons for the Gen2 car with Nyck de Vries and then Vandoorne himself.

“When I first joined Formula E – when was it, the end of 2018, start of 2019 – everything was brand new to me,” he explained.

“Not only to myself, but also to the team, because I joined with HWA which obviously was the first season as a preparation year for Mercedes before Mercedes was coming in. But also, even when I did my first race, I was still combining it with Formula 1 at the time. So my mind was still kind of between both and not really 100% focussed on it, let’s say.”

According to Vandoorne, it was a steep learning curve to join a new series and entirely new form of racing with a new team and get up to speed against established drivers who had been there from the very beginning

“The initial part was challenging because I just had zero experience in Formula E and also my team didn’t have any experience in Formula E,” he continued. “I couldn’t like come in and everyone was just telling me, ‘okay, you have to do this and that’ and get used to it. “We were just learning everything together.

The first full season with HWA saw him finish down in 16th in the drivers’ standings with only one pole (Hong Kong) and one podium (Rome) to show for it. He only finished in eight of the 13 races that season.

“At the start it was tough. We had a lot of failures on the car as well. Some mistakes from all sides – from my side, from the team – but we quickly started learning and we had some incredibly talented people in our team that made it possible to progress so much in these four years that we…