Lucas di Grassi will take part in his final world championship-level race this weekend, which will call time on a professional career that spans 24 years.
At the Curitiba circuit in Brazil in April 2002, the then 17-year-old di Grassi finished an inauspicious 10th after an aggressive and eventful Brazilian Formula Renault race.
But by the end of that season he was a close runner-up to his future GP2 competitor, Sergio Jimenez. (Also taking part in his first professional race at that time was one Nelson Piquet Jr, a driver with whom di Grassi would have several future run-ins.)
A move to Europe at the end of 2003 led to di Grassi becoming a hot property in Formula 3 with Hitech and Manor, before he made an ill-fated move to F1 with the nascent and ill-prepared Virgin Racing squad in 2010.
But it was in sportscar racing and Formula E where he tasted his greatest successes, particularly in the all-electric series where he became well-known as not only a winner on track but also as an advocate and driving force off it.
The Race sat down with the now 42-year-old Lola-Yamaha Abt driver last month to chronicle some of the more dramatic and less-well-known stories from his 12-season Formula E career.
He wasn't going to race Formula E
Di Grassi's 14th E-Prix win, at Shanghai last month, was perhaps his most unlikely. It is also highly likely to be his last. That it came in China, the scene of his first triumph in Beijing in 2014, in the series' first-ever race, feels like a neat and tidy bookend.
But remarkably, only 12 months before Formula E started, di Grassi wasn't planning on being in the cockpit at all.
Di Grassi initially did not see himself as a driver in the championship, which at the start in 2014 was quite rudimentary - with cars lapping Donington Park at Formula Ford 1600 pace.
"I considered not racing Formula E," di Grassi confirms. "I considered staying as a director in Formula E and racing in LMP only."
All that changed though when di Grassi’s lobbying of Abt and Audi Sport started to pay off in 2013 just as he was making inroads in a full-time World Endurance Championship role with the manufacturer.
When he made his decision to race with Abt, di Grassi was all-in. But he was still not confident the championship could remain solvent and active.
"The highest probability was the championship would not survive," he says starkly.
"But I believed in Alejandro [Agag, Formula E co-founder] and I thought he was a competent businessman and was going to make it happen somehow. That's why I committed to the championship.
"I saw F1 going hybrid, LMP1 going hybrid, so the tendency was definitely towards electric, and I was like, 'This makes sense'. I love that initial journey to go through the hassles and learn a lot, understand what decisions were made and why.
"That was very cool, and I needed to be a part of it on and off the track."
Persuading Audi
Di Grassi made his first appearance for Audi in the WEC at Interlagos in 2012 but even as Formula E was forming in 2013 in readiness for a race start in 2014, di Grassi was still trying to establish himself fully at the four-ringed manufacturer.
Any lobbying for a potential future Formula E project had to be done subtly, something which di Grassi hasn't been too well known for in the past.
But there was a two-pronged approach because Hans-Jurgen Abt and Thomas Biermaier at Abt were aligned to di Grassi's enthusiasm for Formula E too. Still, it was a delicate process to get the Audi Sport name on board.
Di Grassi was integral to that process, but Abt and Biermaier played their parts too.
"Maybe if we got the [Audi Sport] name, it would be easier for us with Formula E with sponsors and partners, that is what we asked Dr [Wolfgang] Ulrich," Biermaier tells The Race.
"He gave us a handshake 12 years ago and said, 'Yes, guys, I like both sides. I like Abt and I like Lucas, so this could make sense. And I promise you can have the name'.
"We went home happy, but a day later he called us: I have big, big trouble now because I gave you a handshake and I promised, but I got many, many complaints internally of, 'Why are we doing this? How can you do this?'
"But Dr Ulrich stuck to his word and he was fighting for us."
Di Grassi vs Buemi 2016 (and THAT shunt!)
In late June 2016, di Grassi and season-long title rival Sebastien Buemi were tooth-and-nail for the title, with di Grassi a point ahead of the Renault driver Buemi as they stepped into leafy Battersea Park.
What transpired was one of the most dramatic season finales that has ever been seen in international motorsport, let alone in Formula E.
Di Grassi finished fourth to Buemi's fifth in the first race, extending his points advantage slightly for the final Sunday event on the tight, bumpy and virtually impossible to overtake park perimeter roads around Wandsworth.
Buemi instantly retook the championship initiative with a blistering pole, which drew the pair level on points, while di Grassi lined up third with Buemi's team-mate Nicholas Prost between them on the grid.
At the start, di Grassi desperately wanted to clear Prost, and heading into the second corner di Grassi clipped Prost before spearing Buemi off and into the escape road.
“Can you believe it has happened immediately?” shrieked then commentator Jack Nicholls as it unfolded. No one could.
Di Grassi, momentarily perched atop the tyre wall and looking into the Prince Albert public house beer garden at startled drinkers, somehow regathered himself as both he and Buemi pitted for their second cars and a crack at taking the title via the two points available for fastest lap.
Unbelievably, it was Buemi who managed it, and as he soaked it all in at the Renault e.dams pit he wept uncontrollably as tears of frustration from a devastating penultimate-lap loss with Toyota at the Le Mans 24 Hours just two weeks earlier freed themselves from his wide and bloodshot eyes.
Di Grassi faced some difficult questions for his conduct that day and for some years after in fact. Today, he is still a little hesitant.
"I've said what I said already about that race incident," says di Grassi - who went on to beat Buemi to the title the following year at the final round in Montreal.
"I was very sad that I lost the championship by a fastest lap, but Renault was very dominant that race as well. They were more than almost half a second faster in quali.
"It was pretty much impossible to stop them at that point. We took our chances. It happened, and then we moved on."
The Mahindra mistake
Di Grassi came on strong in what was ultimately his one-off season with Venturi in 2022 after Audi vacated its licence at the end of 2021.
A win at the ExCeL in July 2022 looked like the perfect way for him to continue in a strong team that would metamorphose into Maserati for the start of the Gen3 era. But unbeknown to most, di Grassi had agreed a deal with Mahindra.
"That was probably the biggest strategic mistake of my career, because when I signed with Venturi, I had already a verbal agreement with Mahindra for Gen3, and by the end of the year, I did such a good job that Maserati offered me a deal," says di Grassi.
"Jerome [d'Ambrosio] came to me and said, 'Look, we really want you to stay' and I haven't signed anything with Mahindra. It was just an agreement with Dilbagh [Gill, the then Mahindra team principal] and I really like it here [at Venturi]."
Di Grassi pontificated for weeks but elected to go to Mahindra because he wanted to be "truthful to my word". But there was a nasty surprise in waiting as he went to the factory as a Mahindra driver for the first time.
"Dilbagh picked me up at Heathrow airport, the first time going there and on the way from Heathrow, he said, 'I'm out' and I'm like, 'What? I just had to make this decision a few weeks ago, and now you're telling me you're out?'"
Frederic Bertrand replaced Gill and, while he and di Grassi held respect for each other, their characters clashed.
Allied to that, a poor initial Mahindra Gen3 car, and a withdrawal from the Cape Town E-Prix on safety grounds for a suspension issue, di Grassi - along with team-mate Oliver Rowland - left the team and headed back in to the grateful arms of Abt and its partnership with Cupra, albeit with a Mahindra car for the 2023-24 season.
The future
Di Grassi is still not fully decided on what he will do after this weekend's London finale. But it will be no surprise to anyone that multiple projects are in the pipeline.
What he is sure of is that the Gen4 era, with a car he has helped to develop for Lola, will be an exciting one for Formula E.
"Now, Gen 4, it's a great statement time because they looked for performance, and for me, this will change the game, and not just because it will change the game for the drivers," he insists.
"For the public, it will be the real breakthrough, what I call the 'singularity moment', which is when we put out a statement that Formula E can be faster than F1 for a single lap to start with. That is when everybody will say, 'Whoa! So, the best drivers are driving the fastest cars?'
"We need to work very hard to make Formula E faster than F1 and it will come sooner than people think."
As ever, di Grassi finishes on looking forward rather than back; looking optimistic and the ambitious. Much like his career in Formula E he is on the front foot, insistent and restless.
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