Stoffel Vandoorne returns to full-time racing with Jaguar in GEN4

Here's the thing about professional motorsport: a year away doesn't blunt a driver's raw hunger, especially when they've been waiting for the right machine. Stoffel Vandoorne — a former FIA Formula E World Champion with four wins, 17 podiums, and 103 career race starts to his name — is stepping out of his sabbatical and straight into a full-time race seat next season. He is joining Jaguar TCS Racing alongside teammate António Félix da Costa, a move that the Belgian driver feels has come at the absolute perfect time.

While Maserati MSG Racing's departure into the Citroën Racing outfit left him without a race seat for a year, Vandoorne wasn't just sitting around. The former Formula 1 driver spent the entire season actively testing the GEN4 Jaguar machines ahead of Pre-Season Testing scheduled across 16-20 November next week. Having served as the team's Reserve and Development driver last season, he is thoroughly familiar with his new surroundings.

“We have been very hard competitors for most of our junior careers and then into Formula E,

"I am still the same driver," Vandoorne says. "I am still very talented and motivated and I think success in motorsport has its ups and downs and I don't think anyone has been on top all the time in their career - everyone has had to deal a little bit with setbacks."

His journey through the all-electric championship is extensive. Vandoorne kicked off his Formula E career with HWA just three weeks after leaving Formula 1, putting his car on pole position for the 2019 Hong Kong E-Prix just five races into his rookie season. By his second year, he was racing full-time for Mercedes-Benz EQ while pulling double duty as an F1 reserve driver, eventually capturing the drivers' title in 2021 alongside then-teammate Nyck de Vries. Stints with DS PENSKE and Maserati followed before his reserve year with Jaguar.

Now, a brand-new technological era awaits. "GEN4 is going to be very different, and a lot more powerful and technical in some aspects as well," Vandoorne notes. He steps into the seat vacated by Mitch Evans, who ended a 10-year run with Jaguar to take on a new challenge at Opel. Replacing Evans — the series’ most successful driver in terms of wins, with 16 victories all achieved with Jaguar — brings inevitable attention, but Vandoorne remains unfazed. "I think any of the top teams that you are racing for, you are always expected to perform and that pressure ultimately comes from myself, because I want to perform at my highest level myself so I don’t see anything different to be honest."

Beyond his simulator and testing work with Jaguar, Vandoorne has kept sharp by competing in the World Endurance Championship with Peugeot and maintaining his Test and Reserve Driver duties with Aston Martin in F1, admitting that it barely feels like he has been away.

Partnering alongside Da Costa creates a formidable pairing: one of the rare line-ups in the championship's history featuring two drivers who have both claimed titles. Yet Vandoorne anticipates zero friction within the garage. "We have been very hard competitors for most of our junior careers and then into Formula E," he explains. "Especially in this initial phase of GEN4, it's all a little bit unknown, and we don't really know how competitive we are going to be. We are working extremely closely together and we are pushing the team as much as we can and there are not really any games being played or any hiding."