Perhaps Formula E's most-recognisable driver, and one of its most vocal and active advocates, Lucas di Grassi, will call time on his active racing career in August this year at the London E-Prix season finale.

Di Grassi announced at the Berlin E-Prix that his decision came with "emotion, but also with peace".

"Every great race has a final lap, and I want mine to be driven with the same intensity, commitment, and love that brought me here," he said.

"I will give everything in my final races and I will share more news with you soon about the bright future ahead."

That is believed to allude to a fresh challenge within Formula E, where he is likely to use his experience gained in the championship in a new position.

The 2016-17 Formula E champion, who has won 13 races and achieved 41 podium finishes, will stand down from his racing role at Lola-Yamaha Abt but will continue to assist in the develop of the Gen4 car for the new ruleset that begins in December.

"After a lifetime dedicated to racing, 2026 will mark my final season as a professional racing driver and the beginning of a new chapter," added di Grassi.

"Motorsport has been my life for as long as I can remember, giving me discipline and grit before I knew why I needed them, and purpose in moments when the road ahead was far from clear.

"Racing shaped my life in ways I could never have imagined. It changed me profoundly as a driver, person, father, and human being. I gave everything I had to this sport, and in return, it gave me a life beyond anything I could have dreamed of.

"I am deeply grateful to my family, who supported me from day one through every sacrifice, difficult decision, victory, and defeat. Without their love, patience, and belief, none of this would have been possible. It is with them, especially my wonderful wife and children, that I have made this decision."

Di Grassi's eclectic 25-season career

Di Grassi started his racing career in Brazilian Formula Renault in 2002. Two years later he moved to the UK, racing for Hitech in the British Formula 3 Championship where he was a contemporary of future Formula E rivals Nelson Piquet Jr and Adam Carroll.

Going on to win the Macau Grand Prix in 2005 with Manor Motorsport, di Grassi had a four-season GP2 career, finishing runner-up to Timo Glock in 2007 before enjoying a star cameo appearance replacing Ben Hanley at the Barwa International team in 2008. That season he scored three wins on his way to third in the standings despite missing the first six races.

From there, he graduated to Formula 1 with the nascent Virgin Racing team in 2010 but along with team-mate and former GP2 title rival Glock, he struggled to make an impression in a vastly underdeveloped car.

A stint developing Pirelli's F1 tyres followed in 2011 before a move to endurance racing in 2012 as an Audi factory driver in the halcyon days of full-blown LMP1 Hybrid cars.

Di Grassi finished on the Le Mans 24 Hours podium three times in four attempts for Audi as it battled against Toyota and Porsche from 2013-16 in the World Endurance Championship, scoring two wins and a best championship finish of second in the last of those seasons.

As well as the single-seater ladder, F1 and endurance racing, di Grassi also competed in Australia's Supercars Championship, Brazilian Stock Cars, the Nürburgring 24 Hours and the DTM.

But it was in Formula E where di Grassi made his real mark. It came onto his radar early and he was hired in 2012 by founder and driving force Alejandro Agag to be an exponent of the new series, becoming among the first people to be on Agag's books at Formula E Operations.

After demonstrating the original Formulec FE01 car and then the full Gen1 car all over the world, his competitive Formula E career got off to a memorable start with Audi Sport Abt at Beijing in 2014, when he was handed the first ever win after Nick Heidfeld and Nico Prost's memorable final-corner accident.

Di Grassi soon emerged as one of the most adept drivers in the field, winning again in that first season at Berlin Tempelhof - although he was stripped of the victory post-race due to a minor front wing infringement.

But it was in the second and third seasons where peak di Grassi was seen. He narrowly missed out on the 2015-16 title to then arch-rival Sebastien Buemi; a collision triggered by di Grassi at the first corner in Battersea Park threatened to sour the entire title fight, but Buemi recovered and was able to take the crown by setting the fastest lap of the race.

A year later it was Buemi who came off worst at Montreal when he memorably experienced a complete meltdown in the pitlane, despite fighting back heroically from a practice accident that destroyed his Renault. It was di Grassi who therefore took the title, despite being outscored 6-2 on race victories by his nemesis.

Thereafter di Grassi was still a force in Formula E, taking four wins in the Gen2 era for Audi and then during his sole Venturi campaign in 2021-22, triumphing at the ExCeL.

The Gen3 era though has not been so kind. A move to Mahindra for the first season of the ruleset was a disaster, with di Grassi scoring only one significant result: third place at the season-opening Mexico City round. The lateness of the Mahindra Gen3 car, allied to frustrations with development strategy, ensured di Grassi and Mahindra agreed to part before his original contract had run its course.

The return of Abt for the second Gen3 season in 2023-24 allowed di Grassi to reunite with many of his former Audi colleagues but, as a customer of Mahindra, results were not hugely improved and di Grassi ended up near the foot of the points table.

When Abt ditched Mahindra and teamed up with the new Lola project at the end of 2024, di Grassi was a driving force of development and reaped some reward with a well-earned albeit unlikely second place in the Miami E-Prix at Homestead in April 2025.

But this season has been another frustrating one for the 41-year-old as he is yet to score a point. He has though been an integral part of Lola's Gen4 development driving in both of the group tests as well as a private test day for the reborn British manufacturer.

How Di Grassi's legacy will look

Few competitors these days can lay claim to being anything other than 'just' drivers but di Grassi, a kind of modern racing polymath, is the real deal when it comes to a multi-channel intellect and intense curiosity on a wealth of topics and subjects.

This writer has had countless conversations with him over the years. Those have ranged from future racing technology, to geopolitical matters of the moment, social ideologies and even future medical breakthroughs. This is a man with an incredibly inquisitive brain that stretches itself beyond motorsport to understand topics and matters not often discussed in racing paddocks.

But it is di Grassi's belief in electric vehicle engineering and advancing efficiencies in the motorsport and automotive industries that really sets him apart from his contemporaries. He walks the walk as well as talking the talk. That quality has served him and Formula E well, even if his limitless enthusiasm has sometimes got him into hot water.

From a racing standpoint, di Grassi will go down as one of the best Formula E drivers of the first two-thirds of its history. Clearly, Audi's exit at the end of the 2020-21 season broke up his momentum for gaining a much-yearned-for second title. But he proved at Venturi and also occasionally at Lola that he still had a decent turn of speed.

With the good there also came the occasional bad. Di Grassi could certainly be overly aggressive in battle and occasionally disregard opponents to the extent accidents became unavoidable. But his sometime bruising reputation ultimately won't detract from his copious achievements, although his drop-kicking of Buemi into the Battersea Park barriers in July 2016 was certainly not his finest day at the wheel.

Because di Grassi was much more than just a star driver in Formula E, his legacy is probably assured, despite recent seasons confining him to the back of the field. The weight of his advocacy toward electric motorsport has gone way beyond that of any seen in other contemporary strands of motorsport.

One example of this was his work as a Clean Air Advocate for the United Nations Environment Programme from 2018-24, where he promoted sustainable mobility and electric vehicles to combat air pollution via the BreatheLife campaign.

It would be typical of di Grassi to excavate one last jaw-dropping result in the unfancied Lola package before his last racing season comes to a close in August.

It would be entirely in keeping with a box-office sensibility that should rightly see one of motorsport's biggest characters get one final, well-deserved day in the sun.