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On the day Formula E crowned a new champion, Taylor Barnard secured a place in the championship’s record books. The DS PENSKE driver became the youngest race winner in Formula E history by taking victory in the London E-Prix, completing a remarkable set of age-related milestones.
Barnard had already been the youngest driver to start a Formula E race, the youngest pole sitter and the youngest driver to claim a podium. The final major record still missing from his collection was race winner. He claimed it at the age of 22 years and 76 days, taking the mark from his DS PENSKE teammate Maximilian Günther, who won the 2020 Santiago E-Prix at 22 years and 200 days old.
The result also followed a season in which Barnard had shown flashes of promise and raw pace but struggled to reproduce the points-scoring return of his rookie campaign. He joined DS PENSKE at the start of the 2025/26 season after NEOM McLaren’s departure from the championship.
With most attention focused on the Drivers’ Championship battle, Barnard quietly delivered a composed qualifying performance to start sixth on the grid. He remained in contention throughout the race while running close behind Mahindra Racing’s Nyck de Vries and Edoardo Mortara.
The turning point came in the closing stages. Barnard’s late ATTACK MODE activation gave him the opportunity to move past Mortara for second place before making the decisive move on polesitter de Vries. With two laps remaining, he dived up the inside of the Season 8 champion at the final turn to take the lead.
“I didn’t think it was going to be possible, they both had two minutes more energy. So, yeah, to be able to get both of them, honestly, is unreal,” Barnard said.
His victory came as Pascal Wehrlein secured the Drivers’ title in a dramatic finale. Barnard’s performance was therefore easy to overlook amid the championship celebrations, but its significance for the British driver and DS PENSKE was substantial. The team’s London result also followed Barnard’s recovery from 12th to fifth in the opening race of the weekend, as his earlier London E-Prix charge demonstrated.
Barnard finished the 2025/26 season 11th in the Drivers’ Championship with 68 points. After a campaign of highs and lows, he described the win as a major confidence boost for the team.
“I’ve now got two complete seasons in Formula E under my belt,” he said, adding that the learning process and growing race experience were helping him improve. The London victory gives that progression a defining statement heading into the off-season.
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.