Felipe Drugovich, the 2022 Formula 2 champion, will end a three-year wait for a full-time race seat by joining the Andretti Formula E team for the upcoming 2025/26 season. The Brazilian will partner with former series champion Jake Dennis, completing a formidable lineup for the American outfit.
The move marks a significant career shift for Drugovich, who has spent the last three seasons as the test and reserve driver for the Aston Martin Formula 1 team. Despite a dominant F2 title run and impressive performances in limited F1 practice sessions, a path to a Grand Prix seat never materialised. Now, the 25-year-old is stepping away from the F1 sidelines to reignite his competitive career.
“It’s been far too long for me without racing, so I’m incredibly motivated to get back on a racetrack,” Drugovich said. “It was something that I really wanted to do and get back behind the wheel. I have missed it since the day after I finished my last race in F2, but I needed it even for my mental health.”
While waiting for an F1 opportunity, Drugovich dabbled in endurance racing, competing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and made a brief, point-scoring debut in Formula E last season. However, he admitted to missing the focus of a single-seater campaign.
“I was missing the feeling of having my own little team and my own car, my own engineer and my own mechanics,” he explained.
His new home, Andretti, is one of the most successful independent teams on the grid. Drugovich revealed that the team’s long-standing interest played a key role in his decision.
“I first got approached back in 2023 by the team when they were at the top with Jake Dennis,” he said. “It was cool to be approached again, and I think that’s the main reason I chose them.”
The move effectively closes the chapter on Drugovich’s immediate F1 ambitions, a journey that began with high hopes after he won the F2 title by a remarkable 101-point margin. While his talent was never in doubt, the driver lineup at Aston Martin, with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, offered no clear path to promotion.
In a fitting start to his new chapter, Drugovich will make his full-time debut with Andretti in front of a home crowd at the season-opening São Paulo E-Prix on December 6th.
“It’s so cool to race in front of my home crowd,” he added. “It’s something that I’ve been looking to do forever.”
The new role does create potential scheduling conflicts with the F1 calendar, and Drugovich remained non-committal about his future as Aston Martin’s reserve. “I don’t know yet to be fair,” he said. “The main focus was to get this done with Andretti.”
